


The Consort and I

by The_fic_was_better



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Kinky heist, Knights - Freeform, M/M, Monarchy, Slavery, The sex between MCs is consensual, not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:03:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 62,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29822574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_fic_was_better/pseuds/The_fic_was_better
Summary: A prince consort and an unnamed slave do some treason.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THE CONSORT AND I Playlist
> 
> -"Body" by Jordan Suaste  
> -"Mother" by Bear's Den  
> -"Breaker/Keeper" by Bear's Den  
> -"To Die For" by Sam Smith  
> -"Trouble" by Halsey  
> -"The Killer was a Coward" by Dermot Kennedy

Chapter One

I’d been in the holding stalls two times before, but I’d never seen a keeper like this one. He was young, and not overly muscled, but wrapped in a sort of even softness all the way around, with none of the potbelly you see on most of the older men who come through here looking for bodies to put to work. Plump as a partridge, with clear blue eyes, bronzed skin flushed with exertion, and golden highlights in his curly hair, which he kept in a short mop about his ears, the dancing locks piling over one another like choppy waves on a windswept day.  
  
Rather than carry his money in a heavy purse, he chose to wear his wealth in the form of expensive silks that draped everywhere and yet covered very little, leaving his back exposed all the way down to the two piercings, like dimples, in his lower back. Jewels beaded on him like raindrops, every cut and color, more gemstones than I could name, as rings, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and more piercings everywhere you looked. And you couldn’t not look.  
  
He had a face like a cat—not in structure, but expression. Half-lidded eyes and pouting lips. I caught myself staring at that wide, fine mouth, wondering if he’d used some kind of gloss to make them plump and shine, or if he’d merely licked his lips before stepping into my holding stall.  
  
The thought made me shiver. He noticed. The top lip I’d been watching so closely pulled back in hint of a self-satisfied grin, revealing clean, straight teeth. He’d been studying me as closely as I’d been studying him. The realization was nothing new—not here, where human livestock like me came to be poked, prodded, and inspected; asked to lift that, bend this way, stand on one leg, flex both arms, show me your teeth.  
  
How swiftly I obeyed and how well I performed determined my fate—what kind of keeper would throw the highest bid, and what kind of work awaited me after the money changed hands, whether I would be doing hard labor, bookkeeping, assisting some craftsman, or warming someone’s bed. You could usually tell, just by looking at the purse-jinglers walking down the aisle between stalls, what kind of body they were looking for. You knew to make yourself look alert and clear-eyed for the scholars and plain and unremarkable for the lechers.  
  
In the meantime, I—and all the other unfortunates in the same situation—stayed in a barn built specially for us. The ventilation was poor, to prevent escapes. The last two times I passed through here had been in summer. I thought the heat, stench, and fleas would do me in. But now the cold had set her teeth into the land, and though the human reek of sweat and waste remained, frost clung to the hewn log walls, and the master of the auction house kept us one to a stall, to prevent any sort of camaraderie or uprisings against our handlers.  
  
Now I shivered in the back of what had been my home for the past three nights, wearing only what hadn’t been taken from me—breeches and a tunic, the weave slightly too fine to combat the bitter chill. I wasn’t accustomed—or outfitted—for the elements, and anything nice a body wears into the barns, like boots and coats, is taken to be auctioned off separately.  
  
But this man—barely a man at all, at his age—was impossible to judge. Dripping with finery and glowing with recent love bites—what could he possibly be looking for here?  
  
And why on earth was he grinning like he’d found it in me?  
  
“Dark hair—not black, but we can darken it, yes, and brown eyes. Brown eyes all look the same, don’t you agree?” This to the handler holding my keys: a great blond brute with a greasy ponytail and a chain tattoo encircling one huge bicep. The big man stood there in dumbfounded silence, staring at the piercings just above the cleft of the boy’s ass. The boy kept on the conversation with himself, tapping his chin as he made more observations. “Yes, he hasn’t seen too much sun, either—pale as a noble—and a nice build. Do you have any scars? Show me.”  
  
I jumped. Potential bidders made odd demands of us all the time, and yet I wasn’t prepared for a question like that—purely cosmetic. It worried me, but, hastily, I showed him the fine white line on my thumb, where the knife had slipped when I was a boy working in the kitchens.  
  
“Oh, that’s nothing!” He laughed a great, showy haha! like we were all in on some joke together—him, me, and the befuddled handler made three. “Take a lap, will you? I know it’s a bit cramped, but I’ve got to be sure you’re not pigeon-toed or gimpy.”  
  
I walked a circle in my stall, barely as wide and deep as I was tall, but big enough to prove my legs worked fine.  
  
“I’ll take him!” The young man clapped his hands, bangles tinkling and jewels ringing.  
  
The handler and I, despite being predestined to despise each other—me being the one locked in a stall unfit for animals and him being the one with the keys—shared a look of disbelief.  
  
“These are holding stalls,” the handler attempted to explain, gesturing down the aisle to all the other poor bastards locked in the barn with me. “Auction starts tomorrow morning.”  
  
“Oh, but he’s perfect—I want him now. And I’m in such a hurry!”  
  
“Take that up with the master of the auction house. He’ll be wanting his cut of any sale.” The handler waved the young man out of my stall, impatient to lock me in again before I could cause any trouble—not that I ever had.  
  
“And what kind of cut do you get, my good man? Surely someone with the most important job in the business gets a fine commission. Why, without you, there would be no business!”  
  
The handler looked grumpy, which was never a good sign for someone in my position, whether or not we’re the cause of it. “I don’t make commission.”  
  
The young man gasped and threw himself into a swoon against the doorframe. “He doesn’t even make commission!” he whispered loudly in my direction, jeweled hand splayed across his barely-concealed breast.  
  
I couldn’t help it. While he was flopping around, I stole a glance out the doorway. The gap his swooning created was more than wide enough to leap through—if only straight into the hairy arms of the brutish handler.  
  
The handler, after years of managing hopeless fools such as myself, read my thoughts in an instant. He charged into the tiny stall like a bull elephant, knocking the poor rich boy aside and smashing me into the corner. I struck the wall and crumpled into a heap on the used mess bucket and thin layer of straw, ears ringing, shoulder smarting. The handler drew back on booted foot for a kick.  
  
“Stop!” the young man cried in a voice he hadn’t used before. The simpering flirt was gone. His shoulders filled more of the doorway than before, and his voice was that of a prince or captain, deep and carrying, daring to be ignored. “Don’t touch him again! You’ll damage him, and I need him exactly as he is.”  
  
The handler did stop, if only so long as it took him to remember he was twice the size of the pampered snot currently ordering him around.  
  
Before the pretty young man could find himself ground into the dirty straw and stone floor beside me, he unclasped his necklace and let it puddle into his palm. Next came the sapphire earrings, the diamond nose stud, the rings of every color, and all the gold bangles and chains. In lieu of a purse, he took off one satin shoe and dumped all the trinkets into it. Half-barefoot, he still wasn’t done. Pulling the silk top off one shoulder, he exposed his chest and the twin piercings there—one through each nipple. Into the satin shoe these went, followed by the anklets, the toe rings, and the gauges in the small of his back.  
  
The entire un-adorning took several minutes but, when he was done, he looked somehow more beautiful. His sun-kissed skin was barely hidden beneath silks that fluttered, unburdened the weight of jewelry, even in the squalid barn without any air flow. Only now that the distracting gems were gone did I realize the blue silk perfectly matched his eyes.  
  
“I don’t want a bill of sale,” he said, pushing the heavy shoe into the brute’s hands. “I don’t want any record of this in the auction house’s books. As far as your boss is concerned, you found this boy cold in his stall. He slit his wrists, shit himself to death, I don’t care—what happens to the people who die in here before they’re sold?”  
  
The handler looked up from the cache of treasure now firmly in his grasp. His glazed eyes suggested he’d not registered half of what the young man said, but after a moment’s soul-searching and stuttering, managed, “We feed any dead bodies to the guard dogs.”  
  
“Give the dogs an extra bone for me, then, will you?”  
  
My new keeper moved quickly after that, pulling me to my feet, never minding the fresh mess I was in—in fact, hardly sparing a word or glance for me beyond looping a lightweight cord around my body and then his own wrist. He was clever about it, winding the cord in a figure-eight about my shoulders and waist, so I could neither shimmy out nor easily strangle him with my end. The handler was all too happy to turn a blind eye to our progress, busying himself fondling the swollen satin shoe, while my new keeper ushered me out of the barn. I could feel the other slaves’ eyes on me as he herded me past the viewing slits in their stall doors. None of them were sure whether to envy or pity me.  
  
I wasn’t sure whether to envy or pity me.  
  
In a world where a keeper can tell a body they own to do anything—from sucking cock to killing himself—without consequence, what horrors did this boy have in mind that he felt the need to hide?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Outside the auction house, the open-air market was a storm of bodies and colorful clothing this early in the morning. The odor of the barn gradually faded as we passed the auction block—empty for now—and soon my nose was twitching around the smells of roasting meat. We navigated through the general market square, and my mouth watered miserably. I’d had nothing but broth and bread heels for three nights, but I didn’t dare speak up, merely plodded along in my holey-sock feet, following this silk-wrapped, one-shoed delicacy through winding lanes crowded with stalls selling bolts of cloth, ceramics, dried spices from afar, fresh herbs from slightly less afar, and incense-soaked firewood.

We stopped at the cobbler’s, a little stone shop mostly hidden behind gaudy tents selling oils, perfumes, and erotic tapestries. A bell rang as we pushed into a cozy, dark, and blessedly warm space that smelled of leather and polish.

“Cobbler!” my keeper called.

A little gray man with round spectacles toddled in from a back room. His rheumy eyes, already magnified by multiple thick lenses, grew two sizes when he took in the young man’s well-groomed appearance and fine silk clothes.

“How—how can I serve you, my…?”

It was an invitation for my new keeper to state his title and rank, but he only gestured to me and said, “Shoe him.”

The cobbler’s eyes found me, hiding in the shadow of the doorway, as far from him and my keeper as the cord would allow without going taut. The cobbler’s round, bearded face scrunched up as my smell reached him at last.

“Socks too,” said my keeper. Then he reached into his billowy silks and produced a small velvet purse—from where, I know not, even to this day. “I’ll be paying up front.”

The cobbler miraculously overcame his disgust and set about measuring my feet, fitting me with a nice set of secondhand boots that came as high as my ankles. The laces were new. They made crisp sounds as he threaded them through the eyelets. With these came two pairs of thick woolen socks—“Knitted by my own dear, sweet wife”—one to wear now and another pair to… Well, I’d never owned more than one pair at a time, so I wasn’t really sure what to do with the spares. I pulled them on over my hands like mittens, remembering the cold that waited patiently outside.

My new keeper watched me do it, one eyebrow lifted, and I cringed for the rebuke that was surely coming. But he only said, “Huh, that’s an idea,” and smirked.

My holey pair of old socks disappeared while I was looking the other way, and I silently mourned their loss.

“And what about you, good sir?” said the cobbler, eyeing my keeper’s bare foot and lonely satin shoe like he could already taste the money from a second sale.

My keeper looked down at his own feet in surprise. His toenails were grayish from the cold.

“Oh—no, this is fine,” he assured the cobbler, before leading me out into the packed marketplace again. In this same manner I came by a new sheepskin coat and leather belt. I was sorry to pull them on over my filthy tunic, even if my old clothes had once been similarly fine.

We were nearing the end of the marketplace now. The next street was all nobles’ houses, every one grander than the one before, and beyond them, the palace gates, which I’d never seen in person, and didn’t expect to be seeing anytime soon.

My keeper drew me into an alley filled mostly with firewood. We had to watch our step or risk rolling an ankle on a stray log. There was little sun and less warmth in this damp, narrow space, but my fingertips were quite content in their socks. The ground was a slurry of mud and worse. I grieved for my new shoes, though I still had no idea how long I’d live to wear them, knowing nothing about the young man leading me around on a leash.

“Right then,” he sad, looking at me properly for the first time since the barn. “You look great!”

Did I? I didn’t know. I was staring at the mud between his toes. A band of gold, hardly thicker than a thread and the last of his jewelry, wound around his littlest toe. It was muddy too. The whole image was obscene.

“What’s your name?”

“I haven’t got one,” I replied, unable to hide my surprise that he would ask such a thing—that he would not have already known that unkept slaves didn’t have names. Since he was the last keeper to buy me, it was up to him to name me.

“Well, I’m Isaac. Listen—I’m going to have to ask you to do something unpleasant for me now. Or maybe you’ll find it pleasant—who am I to know?”

“Okay,” I said.

“I need you to rough me up a bit.”

“You want me to…hit you?” Maybe he had a fetish and was ashamed of it, needed to hide it from his high-society peers. Did he buy me in secret just to exercise his kinks? I didn’t know shame was a part of noble society.

“Yes. Go ahead. Like you mean it.”

I made a fist but could only stare at it. To disobey him was death. To strike him was death.

“Come on, then!” he urged. “Pretend you’re a slave with no rights or free will of your own. Pretend you’re covered in your own shit—or is it someone else’s?—and I just secretly bought you out of a barn full of people as equally bad off as you. There’s no one looking for you. There’s no one left to give a shit if I fuck you and throw you in the river unless you—”

And then I hit him.

As hard as I could.

Right on his perfect cheekbone.

And when he went down in the mud and kindling, I kicked him—again and again, driving the solid toe of my new boot into his gut till he curled up in a ball, and then I sat on him. I yanked his head up by a handful of curls and punched him, over and over, and eventually I realized he was fighting back, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t hear him over the blood pounding in my ears. I just kept whaling on him, till he planted his heels and flipped both of us. Then it was me in the fetid mud in a narrow alley, slithering around in rotted fruit and horse piss, while he pinned my arms and body down, cursing me, commanding, “Stop trying to bite me—ow! Stop biting!”

And I broke, and I started crying in front of this stranger, this freak, and I didn’t care that he saw. He bought me—he owned me. That made all my noisy, snot-soaked bawling more his problem than mine. I couldn’t even claim my own tears. They belonged to him—so let him fucking deal with them.

Instead of beating me into silence, he dragged me, still wailing, behind the firewood, and held me there till I calmed down, doing nothing worse to me than covering my mouth lest people walking by the alley entrance poke their noses in to see what all the fuss was about.

I had never done anything like that before—hitting a keeper! I’d never dared! Looking at his perfect, bloodied face, I didn’t want to apologize. I wanted to get on my knees and beg for his forgiveness—and my life.

He must have sensed the sudden terror in me, for he seized my by the shoulders before I could fall at his feet and, speaking through the pulpy mess I’d made of his lips, said, “Keep that spark—you will need it. For what I’m going to ask of you in the weeks to come, I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”


	3. Chapter 3

Clumsy with pain from the beating I’d been ordered to deliver, Isaac hid the leash connecting us beneath our clothes as best he could (beneath mine more than his, for reasons of his silken undress). I won’t lie and say I didn’t entertain the thought of killing him then, half-clobbered as he already was, and well-hidden by the firewood stacked in the alley. But once he was dead, I’d have still been tied chest-to-wrist to a corpse and, like his coin purse, I had no idea where he’d hidden the knot.

And now, I must confess, he’d piqued my interest. I’d just been bought in a pre-empt with no receipt the day before the auction, then outfitted against the cold in a coat and boots worth more than my body was, and my first task in this new chapter of my life is to beat my keeper senseless?

You can’t blame me for wondering what came next.

Cord tucked mostly out of sight, Isaac hauled himself to his half-bare feet, using the firewood and me to pull himself up.

“Most excellent,” he said thickly, leaning heavily against me. The words came out with a big pink bubble of blood that dribbled down his chin. “Follow my lead.”

And together we hobbled—not back toward the marketplace and the slums beyond, but deeper into the wealthier districts, where the streets were wide and cobbled, and the windows all had real glass panes to seal in the warmth. Chimneys and stovepipes poked out of every roof—sometimes one or two to a house! There was no mud here, and even the horse shit was tended to by scurrying street sweepers, working quickly so as not to draw attention to themselves and distract from the picture of wealth and grandeur.

I used to work in a house almost as nice as one of these, assisting the cook, serving the food, doing most of the laundry, and sweeping the floors. I also kept up with the property, by white-washing the exterior, scrubbing the gabled windows, and scooping out the copper gutters. It wasn’t bad work, all in all. When you were done, you could step back and see the difference you’d made. But the deeper Isaac led me into the nobles’ district, the shabbier my memories of my previous keeper’s home became. Just a few streets from the palace gates, the houses were taller, gaudier, made with cut stone instead of clay, and topped with terra cotta roof tiles instead of thatch. Hedges and topiaries joined the lampposts lining the wide, clean streets. Fountains and benches provided gathering places for ladies in dresses that looked more like confectionary than clothing, tittering behind their hands to one another as Isaac and I—quite the pair—shuffled by.

I braced myself, expecting a door to slam open at any second, and an enraged man to come flying down the street to pummel me into the cobblestones for what I’d done to—whatever Isaac was. Because the finer the houses and people around us became, the more I began to suspect two things:

One, that Isaac was closer in station to me than he was the people around us.

And two, his plan was terrible.

“Everyone’s looking at us,” I whispered.

“No—they’re looking at me. Keep your head down. Don’t let them see your face.”

We rounded a corner and I knew at last where our collision course was headed. The palace gates loomed at the end of the tree-lined street. Twisted copper, gone a sort of sea green, formed mermaids and sea monsters that crawled over the gates from top to bottom. Matching seahorses kissed where the gates joined, locked tight. Two guards stood at attention just inside.

My good sense woke up and made a grab for the reins. I jerked back, but Isaac’s hold on me was iron. By then it was too late—the guards had already seen us. Burly men in mail and helmets, they creaked the gates open just wide enough to permit us, and I tried not to gawk at everything—from the snapping banners and mounted heads along the palace walls, to the lavish rose gardens and strutting swans.

The guards hovered over us, tugging their mustaches thoughtfully, weapons only half-drawn, trying to decide how best to handle this intrusion. The sunlight glinting off exposed steel was enough to make my bowels go loose.

Isaac pinched me savagely.

“Oh! Yes. I, uh—found him like this,” I said, dutifully reciting the one line I’d been assigned in this charade. “I’m—well, I’m—returning him. Here he is, then. Where shall I put him?”

“What a bother,” the bigger guard said, tugging his reddish moustache. “Someone kicked the king’s puppy!”

“It’s no wonder!” said the other, tugging his darker moustache. “The little shit’s mouth finally caught up to him. Did you yap at the wrong person, little puppy? Wandered off too far from your cushion and come home with your tail between your legs?”

The swords retreated into their scabbards with a sound like flowing water. Isaac just hung there at my side, a deadweight dragging on my arm around his waist. He didn’t tense at their mockery, or even seem to hear them at all.

Meanwhile, the guards’ mention of the king was eliciting and even stronger reaction in my lower intestine than the glimpse of steel. Isaac was the kept boy of the king! And I’d just kicked the royal snot out of him in a muddy back alley, before dragging him right up to the palace gates, and him wearing only one shoe. Soon it would by my head on one of those spikes, I just knew it!

“Well, we’d better take it from here, lad,” the bigger, red-haired guard said, positioning himself on Isaac’s other side. “You’ve done a real service to you country returning the king’s, uh, preferred company and all.”

This is great! I thought with a thrill of opportunity. Those two oafs didn’t suspect a thing! They were going to lift the burden of Isaac right off my shoulders, and quite literally. Without spoiling his own performance, Isaac wouldn’t be able to say or do anything to stop me from hoofing it the second the guards took him away.

Then I remembered Isaac and I were still leashed together.

The guard was already peeling Isaac’s arm off me. Any second now, he’d find the cord hidden under my coat. I stood frozen with terror, hoping my public execution would be a swift one. But at the first touch of the guard’s hand, Isaac threw his head of angelic curls back and let out an unholy shriek.

Ravens took off from the head-studded walls. Window shutters banged open up and down the street beyond the gates. Soon every gossiping noble within hailing distance was watching the king’s whore scream his lungs out on the palace’s doorstep.  
“I barely touched him!” the big guard shouted over Isaac’s continued shrieking. “I didn’t do anything to him!”

“Well, don’t do it again!” the dark-haired guard said. “We’ll be lucky of the king doesn’t have our fingers for this! Just get him inside and shut him up before anyone else hears.”

I did the only thing I could think of. Blending in with the urgency, I scooped Isaac up in my arms and ran around the rose garden after the guards. Isaac was no delicate waif, and I’d been living on watered-down broth and stale bread for three nights, but I made it all the way around to the discreet kitchen entrance without dropping him.

“Isaac,” the red-haired guard said, trotting alongside us, “I barely touched you, didn’t I?”

Isaac’s head lolled convincingly. He was deep into his character by now. Or maybe he was unconscious from cold and head trauma.

Inside the kitchens, I laid him down on a scarred wooden table, making room for him amongst the onions and potatoes. There wasn’t a soul in the kitchen to witness our strange arrival save a lone scullery girl. She sat, gaping, as Isaac’s curly head thumped down lifelessly directly in front of where she sat peeling vegetables.

“Are you daft, girl?” snapped the bigger guard. “Run and fetch the physician! Or maybe you’d prefer to tell the king his pet died while you sat there skinning taters!”

She fled in an instant.

Both guards watched her brown skirt disappear through the doorway.

Then one of them said, “Wouldn’t have been a bad idea—sending her to break the news to the king.”

“Aye, then one of us could’ve fetched the physician.”

“Even tempered fellow, the physician.”

“Aye, a very cool head on him, that’s right.”

“Pleasant company, he is.”

“Aye.”

“Nothing like the king.”

“Nay.”

“But someone’s got to let him know what happened to Isaac here.”

The guards stared at one another across the table for a long time.

Between them, Isaac let out a piteous moan.

“Well, go on, then,” the bigger guard said.

“Why should I go? You’ve been in the king’s service longer. He knows you—he’d rather hear it from you.”

“Right, I’ve been here longer, that makes me your superior. And I don’t want to go, that means you have to.”

“I don’t want to go, either!”

“What if we went together?”

“Swear you won’t jump behind a tapestry at the last second, leave me all alone to face his majesty?”

“Swear on my poor dead mother.”

They shook on it. Then both guards tramped out of the kitchen, armor and weapons clanking down the corridor.

Warmth billowed from the hearth at my back, a fireplace so big I could have stood up inside it with both arms outstretched to either side, if not for the pleasant fire and the cauldron of thick, bubbling stew. My stomach grumbled noisily, inches from where Isaac’s head lay pillowed on some onions.

I sank onto the scullery maid’s vacant stool. She’d dropped the potato she’d been peeling. There it lay, half-naked on the flagstone floor by my foot—with the paring knife resting beside it.

Somehow, the little blade wound up in my new boot.

Isaac gave another little moan and I snapped upright. One of his blue eyes was slitted open, watching me. Lying on the table as he was, there was no way he could have seen me filch the dropped knife. But just in case he was suspicious, I brought the half-peeled tater to my mouth and took a hearty bite.

“Is that even cooked?” he asked, keeping his voice down.

“No,” I said, doing my best to chew convincingly.

“Are the guards gone?”

“We’re alone.”

He shot up from the table in a wave of muddy blue silks and, taking me by the shoulders, hustled me over to the pile of firewood by the hearth. Instead of ducking down to hide in a surreal reenactment of our time together in the alley, he opened a little door set into the stone wall. The cupboard was bare, save for some mulch and kindling sprinkled on the bottom. He stuffed me into the tight space headfirst and, before I could orient myself, he’d freed his wrist and used the length of cord to bind my hands behind my back, going so far as to tug the socks I wore as mittens up high enough that the thong wouldn’t rub my wrists raw. Next, he tore a strip from his own silk top and gagged me.

“One peep and I’ll kill you myself,” he swore, before shutting me up in the dark cupboard, legs folded beneath me uncomfortably, head and shoulders hunched against the ceiling, and my fingers already going fat and numb from the too-tight chain around my wrists.

There was a slightly scuffling from the kitchen—Isaac getting back into position, I could only assume. And not a second too soon.

Two pairs of feet rushed into the room—the scullery maid returning with the physician, from the sound of the voices that followed. The physician, voice softer and higher than most men’s, tasked the girl with fetching clean rags and boiled water.

I could only crouch, scrunched up in the cupboard, listening to the physician’s softly-spoken questions, and Isaac’s weak replies. Soon, more boots echoed in the corridor, growing louder as they reached the kitchen.

I heard a gasp, followed by a crash—the scullery girl dropping the pot of water.

“Your Grace!” the physician exclaimed.

I held my breath in the darkness.

“How is he?” asked the deep, resonating voice that could only be the king’s. I had never actually lain eyes on the king before, and I desperately wanted to shuffle around and find a crack to peer through, but I was stuck with my back and bound hands facing the cupboard door, and I didn’t dare twitch so much as a finger.

“You needn’t have come all the way down to the kitchens, Your Highness,” the physician said. “Dear Isaac will be all right—I’ll have him sent to you once I get him cleaned up.”

“I asked, how is he!”

“A few bumps and scrapes, that’s all. Looks like he took a tumble. You know how spirited his pony can be.”

The king’s voice dropped to a level that was almost gentle. I pictured him bending low over Isaac when he asked, “What happened?”

Isaac gave a little cough and said, “I was out on a ride—got jumped. Took everything.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know his name.”

“Tell me anything you can, Isaac. I’ll have the guards hunt him down.”

“It was a man”—Isaac coughed again—“with long yellow hair and a chain tattoo.”

One of the guards spoke up then. “Don’t the auction house handlers all have chain tattoos?”

“Go,” said the king. “Find the man with the blond ponytail.”

“Sir!” the guards replied before charging noisily back outside.

“Clean him up and take him to bed,” the king said.

“Yes, Your Grace—your chambers or his?” the physician asked carefully.

There was a thoughtful pause. I feared my heart would beat too loudly over it.

“His own,” the king decided. “And do something about the swelling—his face looks terrible.”


	4. Chapter 4

I don’t know how long I hunched, stuffed in that cupboard. I heard the physician helping Isaac to his feet, and they left the kitchens together. It seemed like they’d been gone only a moment before the room filled up with palace staff, and lunch preparations were underway. My feet and bound hands went numb and my neglected belly clenched and rumbled, tortured by the smell from the ovens. I was both terrified of being discovered and desperate to be dragged out into the open, that I might stretch my arms and legs one last time as I walked to the executioner’s block.

I listened to the clatter of plates and bowls being laden with food and then whisked away, and then the clang and bang of dirty dishes returning to be washed. Lunch—from the first potato peeled to the last goblet scrubbed and dried—must have taken hours. The kitchen staff didn’t even pause to rest before moving on to the first course of dinner, and I, cramped and hungrier than ever, was subjected to a second wave of tantalizing scents and the cold fear of voices right outside my hiding place as scullery maids fetched logs to feed the fire and the cook asked about ingredients, exotic things like fruits and strange spices I’d never tasted.

My cupboard shared a wall with the hearth. On top of stiffness and hunger, I was soon contending with the ever-increasing heat and the thirst it inspired. I scraped my swollen tongue across my lips till they cracked, and then I sucked the blood, desperate for any hint of moisture in my mouth. I missed the chill of the auction barn. I was never thirsty there—hungry, certainly—but thirst was easily staved off by the buckets of water refilled every morning during the handlers’ first rounds of the day.

I must have passed out.

When I came to, the noises in the kitchen had died down to the chattering of the scullery maid and a cat meowing into her pauses. The floor of the cupboard shuddered beneath me. The walls on either side began to shift and slide downward. My teeth rattled and I lurched forward, skinning my nose on the stone as it slid past me. Was it an earthquake? Was the palace under attack? Out in the kitchen, the scullery maid was still talking to the cat, oblivious to the kitchen shaking and collapsing around her.

Her voice faded as my hiding place lurched upward. The palace wasn’t falling down at all! Rather, I—my entire cupboard—rose jerkily upward. I was in some sort of service lift bearing me up and up and up. Occasionally light would poke in through gaps and cracks as I rose through the walls between rooms. Snatches of conversation drifted in and away again as I ascended out of hearing range. I catalogued a myriad of scents, everything from the perfume of a lady’s room to the odor of an oft-used lavatory. I had no way of knowing how high I was or where I was going. I passed through at least three rooms, and as many stretches of perfect darkness, my only companion the squeak of pulleys and groan of chains bearing my weight.

As suddenly as my ascent began, I came to a halt, the box swaying gently over what was certainly a very long drop. I tried not to think about it.

The door swung open and I tumbled out.

“Excellent!” Isaac said, beaming down at me.

Excellent? Excellent?! I’d just spent an afternoon in a box, twinging with pins and needles, and baking like a loaf of bread—and he had the fate-forsaken nerve to smile and say, Excellent?

He knelt beside me, untied my wrists, and helped me sit up. I flexed my fingers and rubbed feeling back into my hands, taking in my new surroundings. The little room I’d fallen into was dim and cozy, with its own little fire burning in the ornate hearth beside the service lift’s shaft. What I mistook for a circular room was actually an octagon, and every wall except the one above the fireplace had a window, all seven currently shuttered against the bitter winter evening.

A little bed piled with pillows and furs mounded along one side of the room. A vanity, carved with flowers, vines, and nymphs, groaned beneath the number of perfumes and scented oils in glass bottles of every size and color. A tub the size of a horse trough sat by the hearth, fed by a pipe coming down from the ceiling, and drained by another disappearing into the floor.

But what I really noticed, before anything else, was how alive the place felt. It seemed molded to Isaac perfectly. Though the entire room was only a few paces wide, I felt like I’d been transported into the heart of something that breathed around me, pressing in warmly from all sides. The shutters rattled in the window frames—no glass to keep out the drafts, only rags stuffed into the cracks. The floor was plush and warm with layers and layers of carpets and skins. Shawls and scarves hung from the low rafters, their tasseled ends waiting to caress the cheek of whoever passed beneath them. The bed was a tousled mess, reminiscent of Isaac’s curls. Candles and lamps burned around the room, casting it in a soft, buttery light—casting Isaac in a soft, buttery light.

Isaac! He stepped away and returned, standing over me, wearing a long ivory nightgown that covered him and hid his figure in all the ways the blue silk getup from earlier hadn’t. And just like when he took off all the jewelry in the Barn, I felt like I could see him more clearly now, again, standing over me in pajamas, than I could before. It wasn’t like he changed with his attire; only that I became more and more aware of him beneath the finery.

He glowed. Even with a black eye, a busted lip, and a bandage across his nose, he glowed.

And he was holding a steaming bowl of something that smelled edible.

Before the blood had even fully returned to my fingertips, I snatched the bowl and slurped the contents down. It was stew! Heartier than I’d ever tasted. I nearly choked on a piece of meat, unused to contending with anything of substance. Isaac watched me with in what might have been shock or horror, eyebrows high, a heel of bread limp in one hand. I snatched that from him too, and used it to mop up the brothy dregs before devouring it in a few huge bites, distantly aware of his hands beneath my tunic as I chewed. Deftly, he undid the knot of my leash, and the figure-eight harness of rope fell away, sliding over my shoulders and piling on the floor.

A stoneware pitcher sat on the stool by the vanity. He poured a cup of water and offered it to me; I knocked him aside and seized the heavy pitcher, draining it in a few gulps.

“I meant to pull you up sooner,” he said as I licked the last drops of water from the pitcher’s brim. “But there was a whole parade of staff in to check on me. They’re all gossips, mind, but I thought I’d never get a chance to—”

The paring knife was out of my boot and pressed to his throat before he could finish that sentence. Unprepared, he went down without a fight, and we fell into the nest of cushions and warm furs. Though I had the advantage, I hadn’t forgotten how he’d flipped me in the alley, but that had been on mostly-solid ground. Now, he kicked and flailed, but the bed was too soft, and he was soon too tangled.

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked, pressing the little blade against his flesh. “Are you playing some sick game with my life?”

Even then, his all-over softness astounded me. No slave was so well-fed. I suffered an obscene desire to fling the knife away, freeing up both hands to better feel the parts of him that most caught my eye—his round cheeks, padded belly and chest, and those thighs, like bread dough that’s had time to rise. He was the embodiment of plenty, him and this little eight-sided room crammed with warmth and luxury, not a sharp edge to be seen, save the one currently pressed to his throat.

He gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing up to meet the knife. The thin skin split where it kissed the blade and a fine trickle of blood, almost black in the moody lamplight, slid across his golden skin to stain the expensive pillow beneath him.

The blood surprised me. I hadn’t meant to cut him yet. I hadn’t meant to cut him at all! Too accustomed to seeking some hint or guidance from my keepers in times of uncertainty, my eyes flicked, unbidden, to his face.

He should have been afraid; should have been pissing all over himself and me. But he only stared back at me, mouth shut tight, unblacked eye narrowing slightly from the bottom up.

“Damn,” he said. “And everything was going so perfectly till now.”

He wasn’t going to beg for his life. I knew it the moment I’d seen his expression.

What was I going to do? Locked in some tower room with the king’s whore—with fate knows how many stairwells and passages between me and the outdoors. And say I made it out of the palace and somehow through the gates—then what? I didn’t have any money. I didn’t have any family. I didn’t know a trade. I didn’t know where any of my friends had been sold off to, one by one over the years, as our keeper got older and poorer, until it was just me and the cook left, keeping him comfortable right up till the end. You’re a good lad, he’d said as I sat by his bedside, feeding him slow spoonfuls of broth. Then he’d asked me to press the pillow over his face and hold it there till he stopped kicking. It was the only direct order I’d ever disobeyed. I was afraid—not of losing him, but of what would happen to me after he was gone. It didn’t matter. He died in his sleep that night, and I was in the barn the next morning.

And now I was so, so tired.

The stew was warm in my overfull belly and I was surrounded by soft things that begged to be lain on. Isaac must have sensed it. A spark of interest lit his eyes. He could have struck then, but he didn’t. He only waited, trapped beneath me, and watched my face as I thought again about the hugeness of the palace, the winding maze of rooms and guards, the hard, short life awaiting an unskilled, runaway slave.

I started to sag, and I ducked my head so he wouldn’t see me cry. More gently than I deserved, he pried the paring knife from my hand. My muscles gave out then. Weaponless, defenseless, pointless, I collapsed onto my side, away from him and away from the ocean of softness that was his bed. Even the floor of this room was softer than the straw-mattress in a pantry I was used to.

I could have slept exactly as I was, curled up in my filthy clothes, staring into the fire dancing in the carved stone hearth. I was warm enough, and well-fed enough, and I’d need to piss soon but I wasn’t thinking about that yet. My eyes were already half-closed when Isaac surprised me again, draping one of his furs over me where I lay, then stepping lightly around the tower room, blowing out the candles and turning down the lamps.


	5. Chapter 5

It was still dark when I woke, and I lay on the soft floor, warm beneath thick furs, trying to figure out what was wrong. I don’t think I’d ever been as truly comfortable—aside from my bursting bladder—than at that exact moment.

And then I remembered where I was, and I who I was with: sleeping a pace away from the king’s whore, after being snuck into the castle via a weak ruse and a creaky service lift.

Well, what could I do about it? One thing at a time had gotten me this far. First things first, I had to piss. I stumbled around in the dark till I found a wall without any furniture against it and, wedging myself between the tub and the lavish bed, I pushed the shutter open.

The wind snatched away all the rags stuffed into the cracks, then howled into the little tower room, dragging the pre-dawn light in with it. I watched the rags—which I only too late realized weren’t rags at all, but more expensive silks and embroideries—dance on the wind like brightly colored birds before snagging on roof tiles and tree limbs far below, and blowing beyond the palace gates to delight a pack of noble children walking to school.

I unlaced and let loose, watching the stream shred in the wind.

I’m pissing on the king’s roof, I thought obstinately.

I’d never met the king. Never even seen him, and had only heard his voice for the first time yesterday. I had no reason to hate him, really, except for the fact that I was a slave and he wasn’t.

A moan—delicate in its misery—reached my ears as I was shaking out the last drops. I turned in time to see Isaac’s cherubic face disappearing under a blanket. Only his curls spilling over the pillow remained to suggest there was a body amidst all those mounding cushions.

“Shut the window,” he said. “It’s too cold.”

I inhaled deeply, like I could draw the freshness of the early-morning sunlight into my lungs, storing up enough to get me through a day locked away indoors, before doing as I was bid.

“Get the firewood,” Isaac ordered from under his blankets.

“What firewood?”

The second the question left my lips, something grated horribly, like metal scraping against stone. The sound was coming from the service lift. I opened the little door to find a stack of firewood with a breakfast tray balanced on top.

I moved the tray, decadently warm in my hands, to the vanity stool—the only uncluttered surface in the room—and stacked the firewood in the alcove beneath the hearth. I’d barely gotten hold of the last log before the lift was trundling noisily downward once more, the crank handle on the wall turning in time with the one far below in the kitchens.

“Light the fire.”

I found the poker and uncovered a few coals that had survived the night, snug in their bed of ash. The firewood was seasoned and dry. A few breaths was all it took to coax the flames back to life.

“You’re very well behaved,” Isaac said.

I tried not to bristle, staring into the rising flames. “You’ve got breakfast,” I said, trying to smother the sass. I glanced between his bed and the vanity stool, practically within arm’s reach of each other. “Shall I bring it to you?”

I’d been beaten for less.

“You eat it,” Isaac said.

Well, I wasn’t going to stop following orders on that note.

“Wait,” he said, and my heart sank, empty hand falling back to my side. His bleary eyes appeared over the edge of the blanket. “Is there a honey cake? Sometimes there’s a honey cake.”

I inspected the tray, cataloguing a wider variety of food on one plate than I was used to eating in an entire day: eggs with cheese, sausages, porridge drenched in butter and honey, and a pot of tea. And there, tucked in the corner—

“There’s a fruit tart,” I said.

“Give it.” Isaac’s hand shot out of the blankets. I dropped the tart into his palm and it swiftly disappeared.

“Figs, ugh,” came the disembodied complaint a moment later.

We ate in silence.

I might have wept with each bite.

The fire grew, infusing the room with its warmth and light. As I was licking the porridge bowl clean, Isaac, without ever looking out from under the covers, pointed to two chains hanging above the tub and said, “Pull the one on the right.”

I obeyed.

Water crashed out of the pipe in the ceiling, rapidly filling the tub.

“Don’t let it overflow.”

The leftmost chain capped the torrent.

Isaac pointed to a pink bottle sitting precariously close to the vanity’s edge. “Pour that in the water.”

I popped the stopper off, releasing the fragrance of rose petals. “How much?”

He poked his nose out of the bedclothes and sniffed. “All of it.”

I did.

“Now get in.”

“Sorry?”

“Get in the tub.”

“It’s not for you?”

“I’m not caked in shit. Throw your clothes in the fire.”

“I’m not burning perfectly good clothes!”

“They’re caked in shit.”

I stood there. My knees shook, but I stood there. Isaac stared me down before sighing and retreating under the blankets once again.

“So you do have a spine. Fine. Put them in the corner. I’ll have them washed.”

I wasn’t sure which of the eight corners he meant. I took a guess and lowered myself into the tub, marveling at the sensation of being submerged up to my chest. It had always been cold, wet rags for me, scrubbing off the worst of the grime before bed every night. But this water was warmer than the room, and smelled of roses. I slouched, sinking even lower, till only my kneecaps and nose broke the surface.

“It’s rainwater,” Isaac explained, startling me. I peeked over the edge of the tub to find him finally sitting up, watching me. I threw a glance at my dirty laundry pile, to make sure he hadn’t snuck it into the flames. “The tower’s gutters collect it in a cistern, and the fire keeps it warm. The chimney rises right through the vat. It’s probably a little too cool right now though, huh? It’s better when the fire’s been going all day. I like it practically boiling.”

“It’s perfect.”

Isaac gave me the same little smirk from yesterday, when I’d pulled the spare socks on over my hands.

“I’ve never had a bath,” I tried to explain.

The smirk became a sneer of disgust. He pried a taper from the nearest sconce and held it to the fire, before relighting all the candles and lamps. Then, shivering (rather dramatically, I thought), he took a few shawls from the rafters and re-stuffed the gaps around the window shutter I’d opened, blocking not only the cutting wind, but what little sunlight had been bold enough to poke inside. In moments, the room looked exactly as it had last night.

Replacing the original taper, he turned to me and said, “The chamber pot’s right there, you know.” Pointing.

I peered over the edge of the tub. A golden pot was tucked away in the corner.

“I can’t piss in that,” I said. It was worth more than I was.

“You’ll do more than piss in it. Or were you going to dangle your bare ass out the window next? Open another window and I’ll push you out of it.”

“Sunlight is important for a healthy internal dial.”

“So is not falling out of towers. Don’t open the shutters.”

He went to the vanity and selected a large crystal vial and a wooden comb, the crest carved into the shape of a horse. The wide teeth were its too-many legs.

He shook a thick-looking glob from the vial into his palm. “Turn around.”

No one in my position wants to hear the words, Turn around, but I did as he asked, presenting him with my shoulders and the back of my head. He pushed my head down so my hair wouldn’t drip on the carpet.

Then he was massaging my scalp, his soft hands working whatever was in the vial into my hair, forming a sudsy lather. He dragged the comb through my hair without mercy, probing at my scalp.

“You don’t have lice. That’s good, at least.”

He dunked my head till the soap rinsed out to become a film on the bathwater, which had become significantly less sparkling and rose-smelling as the dirt lifted from my skin.

“There’s a cork in the bottom—there. By your foot. Pull it out.”

The water sucked swiftly downward, following the pipe that went into the floor.

“Where’s it all go?” I asked.

“How should I know? Chamber pot’s the same way.”

I watched the water form a whirlpool, mesmerized.

“Come on. I’ll get you something to wear.”

He dug up a fine tunic for me, embroidered with green and gold designs at the neckline and cuffs. His trousers were simultaneously too loose and too short on my taller frame. Lacking the ass to fill them out, I had to cinch them up with my new belt.

While I stood admiring myself, Isaac returned to the vanity. None of the dozens of bottles crammed together on its surface were labeled, but he snatched a hefty green one without hesitation, took two tumblers from a drawer, and filled them both. His back to me, he rattled a few of the smaller vials, muttering to himself, before sniffing both drinks and offering one to me.

“This is good wine. Better than whatever you’re used to. You have to swirl it a little between sips,” he said, demonstrating.

I did my best, then took my first sip and gasped. This was good wine, nothing like the swill slaves made from rotted fruit salvaged from the back of pantries.

Isaac reclined on the bed as he drank, reminding me occasionally to swirl my drink. His nightgown hung off one shoulder and he kept flicking his curls out of his eyes or running a hand through his hair. I watched him and drank in sleepy contentment.

“So what’d you do to wind up in a place like that?”

He could only have been referring to the barn. “I was born in a place like that. I’ve been a slave all my life.”

“You? But you’re so…” He gestured to me with his tumbler.

“You can say it.”

“Unmarked.”

It was true. Most lifelong slaves have been whipped and branded more than once by the time they reached my age.

“I was sure you were a disgraced noble or something. What did you do before? You’re not bad to look at. Was it the brothels?”

“You read my tag,” I said. All slaves had one made for them when they entered the barn: a sort of pedigree and resume in one, posted to the door of their stall.

But when I mentioned it, he flushed ever so slightly, staring resolutely into his drink. Someone else might have missed it, that flush, but a slave is an expert in body language, being always the most convenient scapegoat. Even now, I couldn’t tell you if it’s better to be surprised or prepared for the backhand you’re not allowed to avoid.

“No. I didn’t read it,” Isaac said. “I thought we could get to know each other the old-fashioned way.”

“In bed?” I asked ruefully, not liking where this was going, no matter how pretty he was.

“Talking.”

“People like me aren’t usually encouraged to talk.”

“I’ll go first then. My name’s Isaac and I’ve been fucking the king since I was fifteen. I used to live somewhere with white beaches and clear water and flowers that bloomed all year. Me and all the other kids didn’t even wear clothes because the weather was always so perfect. Then some men put me on a ship and brought me here, where it’s always cold. They took me to meet a man I’d never seen before and told me, ‘This is your king now. You have to bow.’ And here I am. Now it’s your turn.”

“I’m afraid my story’s not half as exciting,” I slurred. My sleepy contentment was lilting decidedly toward sleepy. I stared into my almost-empty tumbler and tried not to look as drunk as I felt. “I don’t have a name, so I guess we can skip that part. And before you bought me, I kept house for an older man—a musician.”

Isaac slid down off the bed to sit on the floor, mirroring me, with his pudgy legs criss-crossed and his knees touching mine. “And why didn’t this old musician man get himself a pretty little maid to keep house for him?”

“He was unmarried.” I gave a lopsided shrug. “Perhaps he thought it would be improper.”

Isaac cupped my face in both hands a second before my head rolled off my shoulders. “Perhaps he preferred looking at someone like you.”

“He was very old.”

“How did he die?”

“You think I killed him? I told you—old.”

“You must not have been a very good house boy if he didn’t even include you in his will. He could have transferred ownership of you to the estate itself, and then whoever inherited his property would have gotten you too, along with any express instructions to see you’re treated properly.”

“Hm.” What else could I say?

A bell rang somewhere in the room—the kind of bell that summons slaves to their keeper’s bidding. My eyes flew about frantically, but I was suddenly dizzy.

“Calm down,” Isaac said, steadying me. “That’s for me, not you. I’m due for lunch with the king.”

“Unh.”

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to tie you up.”

“Nope.” I threw back the last of the wine, dribbling most of it down my chin.

And then I collapsed. I couldn’t feel my body.

“The fuck was in that wine?” I asked—or tried to. I’m not sure what sounds actually came out of my mouth.

“Fast-acting, huh? But don’t worry—it wears off almost as quickly.” Isaac hauled me onto the bed, grunting and puffing with the effort. He dropped me face-first onto the pile of cushions. I would have lain there and suffocated if he hadn’t flipped me onto my back and straddled me, sinking me farther. Digging around in the cushions by my head, he produced a leather cuff affixed to the bedpost with a short chain, and closed it around my wrist. He repeated the process on my other arm. I wanted to ask why he had wrist restraints readily available—in his own bed, no less—but my tongue had gone all floppy and I was drooling.

“I don’t plan on making a habit of this,” he said sincerely.

He got to his feet and flung off his nightgown. My eyes still worked, at least, and I got to watch him get dressed. In minutes, he transformed himself into a similar version of the silk-clad, bejeweled prince he’d been yesterday. He peeled back a corner of the rug and tugged open a trapdoor I hadn’t even noticed before.

Before he could disappear down the stairs, he tossed his curls one last time and said, “Try not to piss in my bed. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”


	6. Chapter 6

I would have preferred to pass out like a proper drunk. Instead, the drug Isaac slipped into my wine kept me suspended in a numb haze. Though groggy, my mind was mostly my own. I could only lie on my back, arms chained overhead, rolling my eyes about the room and listening to the wind rattle the shutters. The fire I’d built soon exhausted its supply of logs and the lively flames withered into their bed of coals, saving their strength. I suffered a particular anxiety watching the fire die and being unable to revive it. One of a house slave’s first duties is to the hearth. There was no excuse for a cold grate—not even “drugged and strapped to a bed.”

Feeling returned in increments, much like the pins and needles of yesterday. At first my muscles twitched and seized of their own accord, but soon I could wiggle my toes and stretch my limbs. I jerked against my restraints as soon as my arms woke up enough to obey. Fat lot of good it did me, but it felt wrong not to try.

I laid there in a quiet rage. I wasn’t sure whom I was angry at most. Isaac, for bringing me here? Myself, for coming quietly—for falling back on what’s expected of me, even after my circumstances had clearly spun out of the realm of expected? Or my old keeper—why didn’t he tie my fate to the estate? Hadn’t he called me a good lad on the very day he died?

I yanked against my restraints, thrashed and twisted on the little bed, sending pillows flying across the room to whump down dangerously close to the fireplace. I only wanted to feel something—something other than bored and confused and alone. But the leather cuffs were softened by years of use, and I couldn’t even cause myself more suffering than mild discomfort. The rage piqued to desperation, and then broke like a storm cloud into drizzly grey misery. The tears dried up an hour later, and nothing had changed. With no way to track the time of day, to know whether lunch had even ended yet or if dinner had perhaps come and gone, I drifted into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

A bang jolted me awake. The room hadn’t changed—only the fire was dimmed to nothing. The lamps were the same, the tapers, low in their sconces, still burning. My head lifted from the pillow, swiveling in search of the sound that had disturbed me.

Isaac crouched by the corner of the rug that covered the trapdoor—the source of the bang—wearing half as much clothing as when he’d left.

A heated blush spread from his chest to his cheeks. His eyes were wide, pupils huge, and his curls looked recently yanked-on. I should be commended for noticing any of this. For what instantly drew my attention—and held it, like a bird crushed in a fist—was his upright cock, clutched in his fist.

I gave my restraints a panicked yank.

“Thank fate you’re all right,” Isaac gasped, still holding himself. “All day I kept thinking—imagining the worst—ah! Fuck,” he moaned, and staggered toward the vanity. “Excuse me while I just…”

Still clutching himself, his free hand clumsily fumbled amidst bottles and jars before seizing an amber vial. He smeared a generous palm-full of its contents down his length, then furiously tugged on something I couldn’t see.

He moaned again—in relief—as a solid gold ring, not unlike a napkin holder, thumped onto the carpet between his feet. Then it was an unsteady step away from the vanity—an arm braced against the hearth—a few impatient jerks—and he was spilling into the dark fireplace. The surviving coals sizzled briefly.

He stood there a moment, hunched over catching his breath. His head hung, and his shoulder blades jutted like wings. Then he turned and leaned back against the warm stone, slumping to the floor, cock softening where it lay over one plump leg, still shiny with whatever oil he’d used to slide the ring off.

“Some people,” he said, with the breathless air of a philosopher, “get off on knowing you can’t get off.”

I said nothing, still unsure as to what kind of danger I was in.

“Where was I?—Right! I’m glad you’re okay. Every moment I was away, I imagined new horrors. Even the king noticed my distraction. I couldn’t banish the thoughts of you eaten alive by rats or choked to death on your own vomit—”

“Or discovered?” I asked drily.

“—or drowned—what? No. No one ever comes up here. You’d have never been discovered.”

“Drowning in a tower seems more likely than discovery,” I pointed out.

He flashed me a smile, brilliant with afterglow. Then heaved to his feet and unfastened my wrists. My outburst with the paring knife last night seemed completely forgotten, or at least forgiven; he immediately turned his back on me to rescue any tipped bottles on the vanity.

I rubbed my wrists, trying to keep my hands busy while weathering a perfectly good view of his ass. He looked round suddenly, and I was a second too late in averting my gaze. His mouth formed a silent O around whatever he’d been about to say, but it was swiftly lost by the coy grin that spread across his face. I was reminded of the cat again, the wickedly clever eyes, soft paws, and hidden claws. I covered my lap with a pillow but it was too little too late.

“What was that, um—” I coughed, desperate to talk about anything other than my current state. “What was that thing you were wearing?”

“This?” Isaac plucked the gold ring from the floor and held it up to one blue eye, peering at my through it. “Stops you coming. Want to try it on?”

Terror gripped me. He could order me to wear it, and I’d have no way of saying no.

He must have read some of the fear in my eyes, because he tossed the ring into an overflowing jewelry box and dropped his gaze, face coloring. “I’m sorry.”

The apology baffled me even more than the cock ring. I didn’t know how to respond to the offer of either.

“Come on.” He chucked my boots at me and found pants for himself. “I think it’s time you met the others.”

* * *

The stairs beneath the trapdoor wound tightly down to a landing about twelve feet below Isaac’s floor. From there, an unlocked door let into a large, unlit chamber. Gaps in the heavy curtains permitted a little moonlight. It was later than I realized, and I cursed Isaac’s room, suspended in time by lamps and candles. Denied sunlight all day, my eyes adjusted swiftly to the gloom. This was a fine room. Tapestries covered most of the walls, and rugs blanketed the stone floors. A four-poster bed made a grand centerpiece. A writing desk slept in a cozy alcove off to one side, and the fireplace was gilt marble, putting Isaac’s carved stone hearth to shame.

And yet—the room was soulless. The fireplace wasn’t just banked, it was forgotten. An oft-used hearth can infuse a space with life, even when it is cold. But this room felt dead.

“Where are we?”

“Queen’s chambers,” Isaac said, shepherding me toward the door.

“Why is it so…?”

My eyes fell on the frame above the hearth. Taller and wider than I was, the painting or portrait would have been larger than life, hung in the place of honor in the queen’s own chambers. But whatever—or whomever—the painter had immortalized was hidden beneath a black shroud.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Isaac said, dragging me out into the corridor.

I got my first good look at the palace’s interior as Isaac led me through a winding maze of marble, torch-lit corridors. Plush runners dampened our footsteps. Huge windows pulled silvery moonlight into the halls and rooms we cut through. Without the subtle illumination, I’d have stubbed my toe on a hundred carved chests or pieces of furniture, or sent as many vases and busts on plinths crashing to the floor. The palace, I could only surmise, had been decorated over many generations, each royal more afraid of empty wall- or floor-space than his predecessor. By day, the treasure would have been a riot for the eyes. Creeping around in the dark after Isaac, the palace was full of the shadows of hulking monsters.

“There aren’t any guards,” I said after our fourth staircase.

Isaac pulled me into a room and shut the door with the softest of clicks. He put a finger to his lips and we waited in tense silence.

A pair of boots tramped in the hall, accompanied by the jangling of metal and creak of leather. Yellow lamplight shone under the door, growing brighter as its bearer walked closer, and then dimming again as whoever it was moved on down the hall.

“There are plenty of guards,” Isaac said. “We’ve been avoiding them.”

From there it was a mostly-straight shot to the kitchens, which had begun to feel almost like a familiar comfort to me. Kitchens, for the most part, are universal. One may be larger, or a pantry more stocked, but whether belonging to a peasant or a king, the list of similarities is unending.

I tripped over my own feet as we passed the larder, and Isaac looked back at me, his half-lit expression baffled and impatient.

My stomach growled loudly.

He smacked his forehead and cursed himself for a fool. “This is why I can’t have a pet,” he said, but managed to procure a mostly-uneaten meat pie from the larder before I could decide whether or not to take offense. The flaky crust had gone a bit soggy in the middle, the vegetables slimy and cold, and the meat had mostly congealed. I barely tasted it, wolfing the whole thing down before filling what space remained in my belly with water directly from the pump.

“Good?” Isaac asked.

I was full, but his question tempted me to say no and see what other delicacies the palace’s kitchen had to offer. Isaac smirked like he could read my mind, then grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside.

Despite his hurry, I couldn’t resist pausing to inhale deeply, filling myself with the cold night air till my breast strained and frost threatened to form in my lungs. The smell in Isaac’s room was not unpleasant—far from it, thanks to his many lotions, perfumes, and a drain that kept the chamber pot empty. But his was still a stuffy tower room, and no amount of rosewater could suffice for fresh air.

“You like the outdoors, don’t you?” Isaac said, watching me. He was hugging himself and his teeth chattered, but for once he wasn’t rushing me. The realization softened me to him, as bothersome as he’d made my life recently.

“Where to next?”

The palace was huge and sprawling, and it took a long time to walk around the outside of it, sticking to the pitch-black shadows at its base. I had to hold onto Isaac’s shoulder or risk losing him in the dark.

I still ran into the fence.

“Careful,” Isaac said after the air whuffed from my lungs. “Climb over.”

It wasn’t tall—about chest-high, made of posts. It was a fence for keeping livestock in, not enemies out, and it was unguarded. We were still on the palace grounds.

Isaac pulled me to another building, smaller than the palace but almost as ornate, if its carved double doors and moonlit silhouette were anything to go by. Weak lamplight trickled out when he opened the door a crack to poke his nose inside. Coast clear, he slipped in, pulling me in after him.

The scent of straw and shit assaulted me instantly, followed closely by the visage of a center aisle lined with stalls on both sides. I choked and jerked back, banging my head against the door as Isaac shut it. I scrabbled at the seam, forgetting how doors worked but willing to scratch my way out of that barn.

Isaac hissed at me, voice pitching high with alarm, but I was past the point of understanding. I was going to get out of there if it killed me. He threw his arms around me in a bear hug, but I flipped him over my back and snarled down at where he fell. His eyes widened, but I must not have been scary enough, because he flew at me again, this time taking out my knees and sending us both careening into a haystack.

We grappled rather pathetically—me underfed and not thinking straight, and him the pudgy king’s whore. I don’t know if he overpowered me or if the fight in me simply snuffed out. Buried in hay, he held me till I stopped shaking, which was one more alarming development—most keepers simply beat the fear out of us.

“It’s a fucking horse barn,” he panted. His still-bandaged nose was bleeding again.

I lay there with my head pinned to his chest and my fist clenched in his nice clothes. My fingers hurt terribly; my futile clawing at the double doors had wedged splinters under my nails.

“Can I release you now, or are you gonna go ballistic again?”

I pushed up to my knees, not quite ready to stand. “I’m okay.”

“I didn’t ask if you were okay.”

I said nothing.

“You’re not okay,” Isaac said, and I wasn’t sure whether the disgust in his tone was for me or someone else.

“I’ve got it under control.”

He drew himself out from between my knees and got to his feet, standing over me with his fists on his hips.

“Promise you won’t dart off?” he said, and I promised, despite wondering why he didn’t just command me to stay put. I’d never promised anyone anything before, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Commands are so much simpler. You follow them or you don’t. If you don’t, you’re punished. Promises seemed messy. Don’t dart off. Okay, then what shall I do? It was too open-ended for comfort, and that left too much wiggle room to err.

Isaac, normally so astute, picked up on none of my anxiety over the promise, but only disappeared through the door to the tack room, leaving me alone with the ever-widening chasm between my past experiences and my current reality.

He was only gone a moment before one of the barn’s double doors grated open, permitting a young man leading a black horse. I stood exactly where I was, mere paces from the door and covered in hay. He didn’t notice me in the dim lamplight, giving me plenty of time to take in his sharp profile, steely eyes, and frowning mouth. His brow and jaw might have been carved from granite, chipped into their current shape with a diamond knife. Black hair hung in a wavy ponytail tied with a scarlet ribbon.

If Isaac was a housecat, this man was a panther. I had no idea whom he was, but he was in the royal stables and his clothes, though dusty from riding and stained with something dark, were well tailored. He wore dark blue leggings and a scarlet jacket over an ivory tunic. His half cape matched his leggings. I had never known anyone unimportant to wear a cape, half or otherwise.

So relieved was I by his sudden appearance and noble bearing that I gawped at him dumbly before he noticed me and I remembered myself. I bowed deeply. When I dared straighten enough to cast a glance at his face, I found him smirking, one eyebrow raised slightly. It was a not-un-Isaac-like expression, but the similarities ended there. After my time locked away in a tower, unsure of my immediate fate, it was a great comfort to instantly know where I stood with someone.

“Stable boy,” he addressed me, as if I had been a member of the palace staff all my life. He probably didn’t even look at slaves directly, so beneath his notice were we. What a relief! He merely handed me his reins and ordered me to see to his horse. “Careful,” he warned. “He’s a brute and a war horse. He’ll get the better of you, given the chance.”

I didn’t care if the horse bit every one of my fingers off. I could handle a war horse—I could handle an infantry of war horses—brushing and feeding them till my arms dropped off. I wanted to kiss his boots. I led his horse to a tethering block instead. Like kitchens, stables are much the same no matter where you go. I found a feed bag and some oats in short order, and gave the horse’s mouth something to do while I undressed it.

The man turned to leave, and I noticed for the first time the heavy sack slung over one shoulder, bearing similar dark stains as those on his fine clothes. What did it matter to me? He’d given me a job I knew how to do, and now he was on his way out. I was in heaven.

Until Isaac came out of the tack room and ruined everything.

“Bartholemew!” he said.

My blood turned to ice as I connected the title to the owner of the horse I groomed. Everyone—even slaves like me—knew the name Bartholomew. We didn’t dare utter it without adding Prince at the beginning.

The prince turned back from the doors, grinning darkly, looking from Isaac to me.

I threw myself down in prostration. The horse stamped its hoof near my wrist. I didn’t move away.

“Good evening, Isaac. May I ask what you’re doing out here? Didn’t you learn your lesson last time you wandered too far from my father’s bed?”

“Do I report my comings and goings to you now? I was giving a tour to the newest member of staff.” Then he kicked me in the ribs and hissed, “Get up.” I refused. A part of me hoped the prince would see Isaac’s lunacy and whisk me away from his charge.

“Not a very good guide. I found him lost and covered in hay. Perhaps someone more capable of even the simplest tasks should be showing the new hand around.”

“I don’t mind doing it.”

“Oh, Isaac—still trying to make friends with the staff, hoping to convince yourself you’re one of them. But you’re not! You never will be! You keep forgetting that even slaves have value.”

A scuff of leather against the stone floor was all the reaction Prince Bartholomew could tease out of Isaac. Still, the prince left chuckling to himself, self-assured in his victory.


	7. Chapter 7

“For fate’s sake, do get up.” Isaac dragged on my elbow once Prince Bartholomew was gone. “Don’t bow to that cretin like you actually mean it.”

“I do mean it,” I said to the floor. But I got up, if only to finish brushing down the prince’s horse.

“What! Are you doing!” Isaac shrieked with impatience.

“He gave me a task.”

“Stick the damned horse in its stall and let’s go! Everyone’s waiting! You’re making me look like an idiot!”

I stomped out the green tendril of curiosity that poked into the light at the words “Everyone’s waiting.” Curiosity had gotten me too far from safety already. And I didn’t think Isaac needed me to make him look like an idiot, but I walked the horse into a clean stall anyway, slipped off its nose bag, and shut it in for the night.

I was sliding the bolt home when Isaac suddenly yanked me back.

“Oy!” I protested, only to see the war horse’s huge yellow teeth snap shut an inch from my nose. A shiver ran through me. The horse’s big head retreated into its stall with a grumbling wicker.

“You’re welcome, ‘stable boy,’” Isaac said, patting me on the shoulder.

Still a little trembly, I followed him meekly into the tack room. Another lamp burned brightly inside, resting on an upturned barrel next to a pitcher of ale and a few used tumblers. The strangest party I’d ever seen lounged around the room, leaning against saddle rests or sitting on crates: a dark-skinned woman, about ten years my senior, in a lightweight linen dress and apron; a slight, fair man in brown physician’s robes; and another woman, middle-aged with dark hair and skin so pale it was almost transparent, wearing a dress bulging all over with pockets. Tucked into a corner stood a knight in full armor made up of mismatched pieces collected over time till the end result was an assortment of metals, leathers, and textures that called to mind the mottled coat of a calico cat.

I froze in the doorway as everyone continued drinking and talking amongst themselves—except for the knight, standing so still the hodgepodge armor blended into the wall of tack—until Isaac cleared his throat in an obnoxious bid for attention. Three sets of eyes and one helmet turned our way.

For a moment, everyone in the tack room seemed as frozen as I was.

Then the physician and both women leapt to their feet, drawing up shawls and hoods to cover their faces, and the Calico Knight stepped out of the shadowy corner, swiftly drawing a sword that glinted gold in the lamplight.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Isaac said, putting himself between me and the knight, which was not as much of a comfort as one might think. The sword looked plenty long enough to skewer us both at once. “Stand down, Sir!”

The knight seized up like a stuck gear.

“Oh, Isaac! What have you done?” cried the woman in the linen dress and apron. She pushed her shawl back, revealing a round face and full cheeks, dark eyes, and black hair pulled into a puff on the back of her head. Flour dusted her from head to foot; there was even a smudge on her brow, likely from pushing a lock of hair back into her headband. I thought she must be the palace cook.

“Exactly what we all agreed on!” Isaac said, crossing his arms and sticking out his chin.

The physician stepped forward, and I got my first good look at the man whose high tenor voice I’d heard from the service lift. His cheeks and upper lip were as smooth as a child’s. Yellow hair stuck up in wispy clumps, charged by the yanking-on and tearing-off of his hood. “Nobody agreed to this.”

“I proposed the idea last time we met.”

“What we agreed was that it was a terrible idea,” the physician insisted, glaring at me out of the corner of one eye. I thought he looked very young for a physician, but maybe his job was easier than most.

The knight sheathed the sword at last—much lower-quality steel, I realized, now that it wasn’t glowing gold in the lamplight—and clanked back into the corner, looking as sulky as a trained warrior wearing their weight in armor can.

“Oh dear, but he did give us quite the fright, looking like that.” The cook’s hands fluttered over her breast, likely in time with her heart.

“Let me have a look at ’im.” The other woman popped out from between the physician and cook. Her dark hair, pulled back in a bun, was streaked boldly with gray. Most of the lines on her face were around her eyes, probably from squinting all the time. She wore three pairs of spectacles: one on her nose, one on her forehead, and one perched on her crown, plus a fourth hanging from a chain around her neck, giving her the many-eyed countenance of a spider. Adding to the illusion was the length of measuring tape she unspooled from one of her many overstuffed pockets like a thread of webbing. And there I stood, the hapless moth, as she took my height, my girth, and the width of my shoulders.

“Too scrawny,” she declared, and everyone looked at one other solemnly, like I’d just been given a grim prognosis.

Isaac pouted. “It was a good plan.”

“You’ve sentenced this poor boy to death,” the cook said.

“He looks well-born, I’ll give you that,” said the physician, standing on tiptoe for a better look at my eyes and up my nose. “What noble family did your wiles lure him away from?”

“The auction barn,” Isaac sniffed.

“The auction barn!” the cook, the physician, and the seamstress all cried.

Clink, clank! went the Calico Knight’s armor in surprise.

The seamstress shoved my left sleeve up, baring my arm to the room.

“It’s true,” she said.

Everyone except the knight leaned in for a closer look at my slave tattoo. Isaac leaned in closer than anyone.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the date permanently etched on my bicep—the date I became a slave, and presumably my birth date as well.

“All slaves have them,” the seamstress said. She and the cook rolled up their sleeves. Their tattoos had faded with age. Above each of their dates was a small brand in the shape of a crown—the mark of a palace slave. I’d heard about them, but never met one in person. A palace slave never left the grounds, except on royal business, and they could not be bought or sold in regular auctions, because their new keeper would gain not only them, but information about the royal family, even a firsthand account of the palace floor plan and guard rotations—invaluable details to thieves and assassins. A palace slave remained in the palace until they could no longer perform their duties, and then they were executed.

Isaac, from the look on his face, hadn’t known about the tattoos and brands.

“You said you weren’t marked,” he accused me.

I pulled my sleeve down. “I thought you meant scarred.”

“All slaves have a number, Isaac—it’s how they know who’s who. It was your own fault for rushing out without a real plan,” the seamstress said, winding her tape back into its pocket. Her dress was so weighed down, it might have been as heavy as the knight’s armor.

“What are you all trying to do anyway?” I asked, feeling very brave and foolish for speaking at all.

Four voices said in unison: “We’re going to kill the king.”

Scraaaape, said the Calico Knight’s armor, shifting position to better look at me through the helmet grate.

“Treason!” I cried. My stomach dropped and I backed up till I hit the door. “Have you all lost your minds?”

“And you’re going to help us,” Isaac added, though everyone else was shaking their heads behind his back.

“I couldn’t kill my sick keeper when he begged me to put him out of his misery—and you want me to help you kill the king? Absolutely not. Take me back to the barn, I don’t care—but I’m not having anything to do with your suicide mission.”

“If I kill you for being a liability, isn’t refusing to help us also a suicide mission?” Isaac said.

“Please… Just send me back.”

“Coward. I can’t send you back.”

“I won’t talk, I swear! I won’t say anything!”

“I won’t do it, I told you! Not if you were the worst, most cowardly person I’ve ever met, which you are!”

As if to prove his point, my knees gave out and I crumpled to the floor.

The cook put a hand on Isaac’s arm. “Easy, Isaac. He’s just scared.”

“I pulled him up out of his own shit and gave him a chance to make a difference.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she insisted.

“I don’t? Me?”

Some of the kindness in her eyes hardened, and her voice lowered dangerously when she said, “No, Isaac. You don’t.”

They stared each other down. Isaac looked away first.

“Quit your fucking sniveling.” He kicked at me, and I picked myself up, leaning heavily against the door.

The meeting broke up shortly after that. Isaac took me back to his tower room and ignored me the rest of the night. I knew I’d embarrassed him in front of his friends or coconspirators, but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it or even care. I sat on the floor beneath the service lift door and hugged my knees to my chest, staring straight ahead, barely registering my surroundings at all, even when Isaac stripped for a bath.

His head hung over the edge of the tub, hair still dry. His eyes were closed.

“Is this how you prefer to live?” he asked without looking at me.

I held my tongue.

“I offered you change,” he said.

I could barely push the words out around the knot in my chest. “You offered me death.”


	8. Chapter 8

Isaac didn’t know what to do with me after that. True to his word, he refused to even consider returning me to the Barn. Untrue to his word, nor did he kill me to keep me quiet.

The next morning, I retrieved the firewood when it arrived in the service lift, stoked the fire, and set the breakfast tray on the stool. Isaac grumbled that I could eat it, so I did, but I left the honey cake for him, for all the good it did. He stayed under the blankets all morning. When the lunch bell summoned him to the king’s side, he got up, pissed, and dressed to leave.

“You’re not going to drug me and tie me up this time?” I don’t know why I needled him. Maybe I just wanted some kind of reaction, good or bad.

“What’s the point?” He snatched the cold honey cake on his way down through the trapdoor. “I know you’ll still be here when I get back, too scared to do anything—for yourself or anyone else.”

I was miserable with shame. I knew everything he said was true and yet I couldn’t get over the hurdle of my own fear. I used to lie awake on my old scratchy straw mattress and play out fantasies where my keeper and I reversed roles. Sometimes I dreamed up far-fetched scenarios wherein I subdued or killed him to take over his estate, dressing up in his fine clothes and passing myself off as a noble. These secret, mental rebellions were just enough to keep the fire in me lit, as I shivered alone on the stone floor of the pantry—they weren’t ever meant to be dragged into the light of a tack room full of strangers. Strangers who weren’t conspiring to kill a single nobody-noble, but the king himself!

The rich palace fare—and my nerves—caught up to my gut soon after Isaac left, and I spent most of the afternoon on the chamber pot. There I was, surrounded by more comforts than ever, and they had made me sick! I swallowed this as evidence I was never meant to dream above my station. When I wasn’t shitting my guts out, I lay on the rug clutching my crampy belly and groaning, convincing myself this was my punishment.

And then it passed, I cleaned myself up, and I stopped feeling so bad.

Isaac came back after dinner and dropped a tray of food on the vanity stool. As if my stomach’s revolt had never occurred, I set into the food eagerly, marveling at the variety of spices, the rich butter, and the bread made from flour so fine, the lumps and seeds didn’t get stuck in your teeth.

While I ate, Isaac made straight for the tub. I’d never met anyone who bathed so much or so thoroughly. I’d already fallen back into my old routine of scrubbing what stank with a rag and leaving the rest dry. It wasn’t natural to be damp, especially in wintertime, when the frigid wind howled against the shuttered windows. Out of anxiety over Isaac catching a chill and dying in his sleep—leaving me alone to starve up here in his tower—I built the fire up even hotter. If he noticed or cared, he didn’t let on; only crawled into his nightgown, and then bed.

The next day was the same.

As well as the next day.

And the next.

Soon even the marvelous food from the palace kitchens no longer held my interest. I started propping the shudders open a crack when Isaac was gone, which was most of the day. The sunlight invigorated me and the wind circulated the air in the stuffy little room. I was sure to latch the shudders and re-stuff the cracks early enough that the tower was baking hot again by the time he returned.

I knew Isaac was avoiding his own room because of me, and I was ashamed of that too. I’d already heard how the guards and Prince Bartholomew spoke to and about him. I understood that, as the king’s personal possession, he was untouchable, but not entirely off-limits. The morning he’d tied me to the bed—when he still believed I had some thread of willpower in me—he’d said, “No one ever comes up here.” So. This little room was his sanctuary, and I was imposing on it terribly.

A week into my stasis—a week since I’d had any chore more demanding than moving firewood and minding the hearth—Isaac burst into the room hours before I expected him. The sun was still up, and the shudders were still propped open. The only warmth the room offered was directly in front of the flames, into which I’d been staring as I contemplated my meaningless life.

Before I could fly around the room slamming windows shut, Isaac threw himself down on the rug in a fantastic sulk. He was holding his belly. I thought he might feel sick—till I saw the bandage pinned under his hand.

“You’re hurt!” I cried. I had a little experience with tending minor injuries—on horses and house cats—and I rushed to roll him flat on his back. He tensed and looked confused, but didn’t protest when I pulled the bandage away, dismaying at its central location and preparing myself for the worst. A knife wound to the gut would have been beyond even the royal physician’s expertise.

His lower abdomen was smeared pink. A glint of blue and gold drew my eye to the center of the “carnage.” A sapphire as big as my thumbnail nestled in the dip of his naval; a gold ball, the other end of the piercing, pressed a dimple into the soft roll of skin just below.

There wasn’t so much blood as I’d first thought. Most of it was already dried.

I sat back on my heels and felt stupid. “It’s…?”

“New,” Isaac confirmed. “The king likes to add to my collection every now and then. He’s been hinting at sticking one through my cock. I’m running out of skin to redirect him to.” He lifted his head to peer down at himself, probing the soft flesh around the piercing. Then he sighed. His hands fell to his sides and his head thumped back down on the rug.

“Do you want me to draw you a bath?”

“No. I should let this heal a few days before I soak it.”

I frowned. Despite the luxuries of the sprawling palace, a hot bath was the only thing he really seemed to take pleasure in. Feeling like some unseen force was controlling my arms and legs, I soaked the wash rag in warm water and brought it to Isaac where he lay. His eyes were closed, so when I touched the damp cloth to his skin, he hissed in surprise.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.” He settled back down on the rug. “Just—dab, don’t scrub.”

I blotted away the pink smear, rinsed out the bloody rag, and returned to wash more of him, scrubbing the makeup from his face, then moving on to his hands and feet. He relaxed more and more, humming contentedly while I worked. Feeling very, very bold by now, I tugged his clothes off, encouraged by the way he helpfully shifted his weight or lifted himself so the garments could slide free.

Aside from his head and eyebrows, he didn’t have a hair on him. I never saw him shave, but his cheeks and upper lip were always smooth as a child’s, and his underarms only had a few red bumps where hair should have grown. His groin was the same. His legs were so smooth they felt like silk when I touched them.

Seeing his nipples peak in the cold room, I drew the warm rag across his chest, but he only shivered. His skin was flushed and golden, without a hint of dirt. I kept washing him anyway, pushing the warm cloth along the crease where thigh met groin. Occasionally my wrist would brush against his stiffening length. We both ignored what was happened between his legs—and mine.

Every now and then, the sapphire drew my eyes up to his naval. The skin looked bruised and red. I bent and kissed the tender place between the gemstone and the gold ball. Isaac gasped and touched my shoulder.

“I want to help,” I said, lips brushing against his skin as I spoke. I remained in that bent position, my knees on the rug, my hands planted on either side of him. Though he lay on his back beneath me, I think in some way I was bowing to him.

“I can’t take it out,” he said, as if apologizing to me that he’d been stabbed with a bit of jewelry and I wasn’t allowed to remove it for him.

“I meant…” I swallowed. My mouth had gone very dry, but I pushed the words out: “I want to kill the king for you.”

His cock bobbed up and actually hit me in the hollow of my throat. I held my position, bowing over his prone form, my eyes fixed on what I could see of his—very shocked—face from this angle.

“Um.” He licked his lips, gaping eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Ah. Well. The thing is, I wasn’t going to ask you to—uh—march into the throne room and kill the king yourself. Only, see—I had this plan—it’s genius really—”

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” I didn’t want to hear his stupid genius plan right then. I already knew how it ended. I was going to die. At some point over the course of my week spent rotting in his lavish tower, a prisoner but not a prisoner, held captive by my own fear of breaking the rules, I realized the truth. I had never looked it directly in the face before. I’d been a slave all my life. I was born into it. As a child, I’d performed my simpler, myriad chores without question while my first keeper’s children went off to school during the day. I learned to read and write by candlelight, from a woman who may or may not have been my mother, but was willing to lose precious hours of sleep to teach me what she could. As a teenager, sold into a new keeper’s home, I was kept so busy with my new grown-up duties that I didn’t have time to think about anything other than the task at hand. My time spent laying about in Isaac’s room forced me to be still, to sit and think, to acknowledge the fact that my life had been measured and cut short before it began. There were very few old slaves. There were none who couldn’t work. If I died on the execution block for treason, at least it would be a death of my choosing. My first and final act of free will.

I didn’t know how to convey any of this to Isaac. It didn’t help that I was straining against the loose-fitting pants I’d borrowed from his wardrobe.

“Have you ever fucked anyone before?” Isaac asked, watching me very carefully.

“Yes.”

“Take your pants off. Let me see you.”

I did, nearly tripping into the fireplace in my haste. Isaac snatched my cock so suddenly I yelped. My hips jerked forward in an involuntary thrust, but he was holding me too tightly. He leaned in like he was inspecting me. The fingers that weren’t wrapped around me carded through the hair growing between my legs and, more thinly, on my belly and chest. I was pale but my hair was dark. I wondered if it bothered him that I wasn’t clean-shaven like he was.

“Can I—um—” I squirmed in his grip. He either needed to let go or start moving.

“Are you ever itchy?”

“What?”

“Down here?” He yanked on my cock. I whimpered. “Or anywhere?”

“Ah—no?”

“Do you ever get blisters?”

“On my cock?” I cried.

“Or around it.”

“No! Is that a thing?” In my horror, I was going soft.

“Yes—but that’s enough about that for now.” He pumped me back up. My knees wobbled and I sat down hard on the rug, melting into a happy puddle. Isaac leaned over and snatched a vial from his vanity, the same cut amber crystal from the cock-ring incident. He slicked himself up and then me. I thought I’d burst at the first wet touch of his hand. My eyes rolled back in my head and he laughed at me.

“Tell me again that you’ll help me kill the king.”

“Fuck the king,” I moaned and panted. “Tell me where he is and I’ll kill him right now.”

Isaac laughed some more, in perfect control of himself and me. If I hadn’t been seeing stars, I’d have been embarrassed for myself. He crawled into my lap, threw an arm around my neck to keep me from collapsing backward, and wrapped his other hand around us both. I clutched him to me, whining desperately against his throat as he stroked us, knuckles scraping against my belly.

“I don’t think you’ll make it to the fucking-me stage at this rate,” he breathed against my neck.

I moaned, helpless to delay the pleasure crashing through me, cresting up from my lap and surging down my limbs. My fingers and toes curled spastically. My nails cut into Isaac’s shoulders and he grunted softly, the first real sound of pleasure I’d gotten from him since we began. I came in an almost painful rush, making a mess of both our chests. His fist slowed as I began to soften, his own cock still stiff between us.

I shoved him off my lap and he sprawled on his back, eyes huge. Before he could recover, I dove and guided him into my mouth, forcing him as deep as I could take him. I wrapped my hand and lips around him and sucked in my cheeks, drawing up and plunging down again. I didn’t have a lot of experience with this—but one thing I’ve learned from my short history of awkward, hasty fumblings in back rooms is that a tongue on your cock feels good whether it knows what it’s doing down there or not. I squeezed his base, suckled the plump head, and ran my tongue through the slit, then started over again, pushing myself to take him till my throat contracted and I almost gagged. He shoved his fists into my hair and lifted his hips. I thought I’d die. Then his cock twitched, and a musky taste flooded my mouth. I swallowed and licked, swallowed and licked, milking him till he squirmed like I was killing him.

“Fuck, oh fuck,” were the first words out of his mouth since his quip about how long I’d last. I hope he’d at least learned his lesson. “I thought—I was not expecting—”

I sat up and scrubbed a fist over my stinging lips, unable to keep from grinning.

“I mean—no offense,” Isaac kept babbling, “but when you finished five seconds in, I thought I’d been yanking on myself in the corner after you passed out.”

“That’s not unsettling at all.”

“Get in bed.”

“What—your bed?”

“Or keep sleeping on the floor.”

We didn’t bother with nightclothes. I built the fire up and burrowed into the cushions and blankets beside him. The bed was narrow, but long enough my feet didn’t dangle over the end. Isaac turned to face the wall and snuggled back into me, bare ass warm in the curve of my body.

I hadn’t slept beside anyone since I was a child sharing a bed with the other house slaves’ rug rats. I put my arm around Isaac’s waist and felt him breathing, his heart slowing down to normal. I nipped his nape and buried my nose in his wonderful curls. I don’t know what I was thinking—that I’d get to keep this thing that belonged to the king? Or did I only have room in my brain for how good he smelled, like the lotion he put on every night.

I pressed a kiss behind his ear and asked, “So what is your genius plan?”


	9. Chapter 9

I overslept for the first time since Isaac bought me, startling when the service lift rattled up with the firewood and breakfast tray, and startling again to find Isaac tucked against me, grinning cat-like and contented in his sleep.

The stuffy tower room smelled like two people had been very recently sweating in it. I stacked the wood, set the tray aside, cracked two window shutters open, and had a honey cake in hand ready to appease Isaac when he got a whiff of fresh air and made a dangerous sort of growling sound.

“You’ve ruined me,” I said over breakfast.

“Corrupted, you mean.” He ate his treat with his eyes closed.

“I’m not talking about that.” I shifted into the path of the cold cross breeze to stop my blood from stirring. “I mean my sleep pattern. I used to be up at dawn every morning, ready to work. This tower may as well be a cave in the sky!”

“You don’t talk like a slave.”

I faced him squarely, something I was still getting used to letting myself do. “Do you talk to many slaves?”

“Can you read?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes.”

Again, the subtle flush. He tried to hide it by taking a huge bite of cake.

“You can’t,” I said. I wouldn’t have dared last week. And though he looked at me sharply, I continued. “None of your dozens of vials are labeled. I haven’t seen so much as a pen nib or shred of parchment since I got here. And you didn’t know what was written on my tag in the barn.”

The redness drained from his face, taking all other color with it, till he sat staring at his honey cake, white as a specter.

“I can also write and ready music,” I said, since he obviously wouldn’t know, having been unable to read my tag. “I can do sums. I was the kept the books for two of my previous keepers.”

“I miss when you were reluctant to talk about yourself. Now you’ve gone on so long, it’s starting to sound like bragging. Very unbecoming.”

I smiled.

He smiled back. Then his eyes fell to what remained of his cake. He picked at it without any of the crumbs making it to his mouth. “Did you mean what you said last night? That you’ll help us?”

This was my chance to back out. I could tell him, No. I only wanted you to fuck me, and figure out a way to sneak out of the palace and then—what? The hopeless void of a runaway slave still loomed on that horizon. And anyway—I hadn’t said it just to fuck him.

“Yes.”

He beamed, smile returning brighter than ever.

“Though I don’t know how long either of us will live once we begin,” I tacked on.

“I should take you downstairs. Get you integrated with the palace staff. A proper wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

I felt more like a sheep dressed up as a wolf. But I was tired of Isaac (correctly) taking me for a coward, so I only asked teasingly, “Should you?”

“Well, I shouldn’t—but I shall.”

We made our way down the tower and through the dead queen’s chambers. The sunlight through the gaps in the curtains was enough to illuminate the tapestries that in moonlight appeared only as black rectangles. I marveled at the variety of dyes—colors I’d never seen outside of the florist’s stall. But the light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the funeral shroud over the portrait, and I could make out only the vague shapes of two figures through the sheer material before Isaac whisked me away.

During the day, there were fewer guards but plenty of slaves. We avoided them all the same, taking a completely different route than the night we’d snuck out to the stables.

“The king has only one son, Prince Bartholomew, who you saw in the barn,” Isaac explained as we scurried through yet another disused bed chamber, curtains drawn and fireplace swept clean.

“He was carrying a head in a sack,” I said, if only to prove I could recall some detail. I certainly wouldn’t be scoring any points for knowing my way around the labyrinthine palace. “Was it the handler’s from the barn?”

“Yes. Bart is also the king’s executioner. His father gave him the role to calm him down. I think it only made him worse.”

We swung into a cabinet together and waited for a laundress to pass by our hiding place. She’d surprised even Isaac, but the basket she carried, piled high with linens, blinded her to our hasty dive for cover.

Isaac checked the hall was clear, and we were off again.

“Prince Bart is the hair, but the king has a half-dozen siblings, all with heirs of their own, waiting in line for the throne. That’s why so many of these rooms are empty.”

I didn’t see a connection, and said so.

Isaac explained: “There are enough bedchambers to host most of the royal families in the palace at one time, and we often do, for special occasions like the Yule ball. But the king prefers to keep all his siblings and all their heirs and loyal subjects—what few there may be—at a safe distance. He grants his closest family members land and titles and pays them a stipend and gives them power over their knights and commoners in hopes of appeasing them just enough one of them won’t arrange to have a knife stuck in him.”

I thought of all the comfortable rooms sitting empty through the long, cold winter, and all the tax money going toward soothing the king’s paranoia.

By then we’d reached the kitchens, which were not, I now realized, relegated to the single room with the work table and hearth. That room was for storing firewood and root vegetables, prepping and peeling, and putting pots over the fire to simmer. There was also a larder: a room set lower than the others, accessible only be a few rickety steps, and kept cool by the surrounding earth and lack of windows. Stone shelves and metal hooks stored cuts of meat. It must have warmed a little in the summer, but I could see my breath as Isaac rushed the tour along, showing me the buttery next, another cold storage room. Barrels of beer lined one wall, and crates of beeswax candles lined the other, leaving a central aisle we hastened down to scramble up the opposite steps, which delivered us into a room devoted entirely to jarred foods—fruit preserves and pickled oddments.

Isaac talked the whole time. By now I was winded, and my head was a whirl with the names of the king’s family members and their titles, with no hope of remembering whose son was whose, nor how many cousins anyone had.

Isaac broke off in his monologue about hereditary allergies to say, “Here we are!”

Thank fate!

We arrived in a warm room, well lit by a large window. The warmth emanated from one stone wall—the back of the hearth, inset with cast-iron doors of various sizes. These were the ovens for baking. Bowls of rising dough lined the shelves on one wall. Stores of flour and a basket of eggs waited against another. The room smelled like yeast and fresh bread. After the chill of the larder and buttery, the pantry warmed me to my fingertips.

A woman backed into the room through a heavy door, pulling a hamper of clean aprons and linens.

“Bellamina!” Isaac called, and she screamed and whirled around.

I recognized her instantly form the illicit meeting in the tack room. If her dark skin and darker hair, tucked back under a rolled headband, weren’t enough to give her away, the light dusting of flower would have been all I needed to make an educated guess.

“Isaac, don’t sneak up on me like that,” she scolded, like a mother to her son, before her eyes found me, despite my best efforts to blend in with the warm stones at my back.

“I’ve brought you a new assistant,” Isaac announced.

“Is this a joke? You know I’m busy—I don’t have time for your games.”

“On my honor, it is not a joke!” He put a hand over his heart.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“He refuses to tell me!”

“I haven’t got one,” I said softly.

“We’ve all been there.” She fixed her gaze squarely on me. “What changed your mind?”

I did not say, a combination of time, boredom, isolation, and coming to terms with my own mortality. Nor did I mention the strange feeling that had gripped my insides when Isaac told me about his new belly button piercing, a gift from the king. I only did my best to look her in the eye when I said, “I guess I just want to do something that matters for once.”

She held me in her stare a moment longer, then gave me a curt nod and a fresh apron.

“Have you ever prepared dough before?”

“No,” I admitted. “My old keeper had no family. His cook had only him to cook for. She rarely asked me for help.”

Bellamina scooped out a handful of flour and spread it over the table, then her hands. She motioned for me to do the same. Under her tutelage, I combined more of the flour with salt, beer, water, and honey—and the magic ingredient, goopy starter from a crock stored in a place of honor on the highest shelf. Soon I was contentedly rolling and pressing the sticky dough ball beneath the heels of my hands. The more I worked it, the smoother it became, and the less often I needed to re-powder my hands. Bellamina set an hourglass where I could see it.

My muscles were burning before the halfway point, but I lost myself in the repetition of the task, ignoring how the room grew over-warm and sweat trickled down my sides beneath my loose clothes, until Bellamina tied a rag around my damp forehead, similar to her own headband, knotting it in place without my ever having to break stride kneading the dough.

The world shrank to the pleasant ache in my arms. Bellamina moved around the pantry, sliding great pillows of dough into the ovens, and hauling golden loaves back out, lining them up to cool by the window.

“I think we’ve got it from here, Isaac,” she said gently. “Won’t the family be sitting down for lunch soon?”

I looked up from my busy hands, surprised to find him still with us, hovering like a lost child in a corner of the pantry.

“Oh!” he said, blushing hard. “Right. I’ll leave you both to it, then.” He left in a hurry, face downturned so his curls fell like a curtain between me and his expression.


	10. Chapter 10

I didn’t bother to hide my surprise when Bellamina told me most of the loaves and rolls we were baking were for the palace staff—slaves and guards. No sooner had I kneaded one lump of dough to the desired consistency than she was sliding another bowl in front of me to begin again.

“Of course!” I said, as if two pieces had clicked together before my eyes. “Because the king doesn’t keep his family at court—the meals for the royal family members must be quite small.”

“So Isaac has been teaching you.”

“I thought he was just sharing gossip.”

“Pay close attention! The only one closer to the king than Isaac is the physician, and even him, not in the same way. Something that sounds like gossip could prove useful.”

It wasn’t long before the lunch couriers began to arrive in staggered pairs, as predictably as a shadow moves around a dial. Bellamina would set a basket of rolls by the door and it would be whisked away before she’d filled another. This went on till everyone in the palace had eaten lunch, and then we were busy getting ready for dinner. By the time I kneaded the last of the dough, my first batch had risen enough to bake. She taught me how to guide the trays into the oven and how to regulate the temperature so the bread baked evenly. While my first batch of bread was in the oven, she gave me a tour of the pantry, pointing out the different grades of flour—rye and barley and wheat. I poked a finger into the wheat. It was like silk! My keeper couldn’t even afford flour so finely ground.

It was with great pride that I sent the first of the dinner couriers away with the first loaf of bread I’d ever made. Bellamina smiled encouragingly.

Then my next batch burned, and I took the third out too early, and soon I had a line of dinner couriers shifting from foot to foot in the pantry doorway, anxious to be off while Bellamina and I rushed to catch up. Everyone from the pig boy to the king got their dinner in the end, and Isaac was back to collect me as Bellamina and I were scrubbing the pantry worktops and floors.

Instead of goodnight, Bellamina winked and said, “See you at dawn.”

Dawn! We’d worked late into the night without stopping to eat anything ourselves. I might have sleepwalked back to Isaac’s tower, barely rousing my senses long enough to inhale the dinner he’d saved for me and scrape my teeth with a bit of cloth and charcoal paste, before collapsing into sleep—on the rug, out of habit.

Isaac looked down over the edge of the bed. He might have said something, but he may as well have been talking to one of the heads on the spikes along the palace walls for all the response I could muster.

* * *

There would be no more sleeping in till the service lift woke me. Isaac would have to receive his own firewood. Despite my exhaustion, I was so anxious not to be late to the pantry that I slept fitfully and got up when it was still dark. Isaac never stirred as I dressed in yesterday’s flour-coated clothes and left early.

I still managed to arrive late, after getting lost trying to recreate one of Isaac’s winding paths through the palace. Bellamina put me to work kneading the dough for lunch before the sun was even fully up. After an hour, the scullery maid brought breakfast—a crock of yesterday’s stew, reheated over today’s fire.

“Oh!” said the scullery maid when she saw me. I had no way of knowing if she recognized me from the day I carried Isaac into the kitchen while she sat peeling potatoes. She ran out before I could stop her. I waited in gut-twisting horror for the guards she’d surely bring down on me. I imagined the sounds of their heavy boots tramping nearer, the clank and creak of their armor, and the unmistakable whisper of swords kissing goodbye to their sheaths.

But only one set of footsteps came rushing back—the scullery maid again, with a second crock of stew for me.

“I didn’t know you had a new assistant,” she said apologetically, then hurried back out.

Bellamina took two day-old buns and carved their tops and middles out. We poured our stew into the edible bowls and dipped the cut-out chunks into the broth. Bellies warm and full, we picked up our work where we’d left off.

The day passed much the same as the one before, with fewer burned loaves. Having an assistant sped up Bellamina’s work, and she even let me help with a batch of honey cakes. At the end of the day, we scoured the pantry to a shine, and there was still no sign of Isaac’s curly head in the doorway. With no one to collect me, I was too tired to find my way back to his tower, and said I’d sleep on the floor by the kitchen hearth. Bellamina showed me to the men’s dorms, and one of the boys already tucked in for the night pointed me in the direction of an unclaimed bed: a straw mattress against the wall.

I fell across it without asking about spare blankets. I couldn’t have slept better if that sack of straw had been stuffed with feathers instead. Suffering none of last night’s anxiety, I knew the uncovered windows and other slaves rising for the day’s work would make it impossible to sleep in.

I arrived in the pantry on my third day of work in good spirits. Assisting the pantler was hard work—hard enough I often forgot how I’d come to be working in the palace at all, and why. I could lose myself in the kitchen labor and forget about conspiracies and kings and getting my head cut off. Bellamina was kind to me, and a patient teacher, and made sure I had two meals a day when Isaac wasn’t there to collect me. Whether I slept in his tower or the men’s dorms, I fell unconscious the second my head touched down, and didn’t stir till it was time to go back downstairs to work.

One day, Isaac sauntered into the pantry so early I had to check the angle of the shadows on the wall. To be sure, he usually slept in for several more hours. But there he stood, claiming the most unbearable case of boredom. Bellamina offered her snide condolences, but Isaac ignored her tone, instead elbowing in next to me and demanding I show him everything I’d learned. In no time he was kneading his own pillow of dough next to mine, and our work sped up considerably. He delighted in the entire process, from how tired his arms got (he was complaining in joyful tones that he’d surely die if he kneaded dough another minute, and then he proceeded to knead for the next hour, growing more frantic and cheerfully distressed). He wanted to put all the bread in the oven and take it all out himself, but Bellamina only let him remove a single tray of rolls. He burned himself. The tears he wept might have been of joy. When the first courier showed up, he demanded they answer a riddle before he'd give them any bread. Bellamina distracted him from tormenting the couriers by trusting him with mixing the honey into the honey cake batter. He was ecstatic, and licked the spoon whenever her back was turned.

The scuff of boots in the doorway announced the next courier. Bellamina tossed a few more rolls into her basket and turned around.

A gasp escaped her. I looked up from kneading, and Isaac froze with his tongue against the honey cake spoon.

Prince Bartholomew surveyed us from the doorway. He was dressed more casually than when I’d first seen him, wearing only leggings and a long, embroidered shirt. His black hair was in a braid, and he had stubble on his face. To make up for his lack of finesse, a thin circlet of gold rested on his head.

Isaac wiped cake batter off his mouth and said, “Bart.”

Bellamina and I bowed, but the prince didn’t even look at us. Or if he did, he didn’t recognize me as the “stable boy” he handed his horse off to one night.

“There you are,” said the prince. “Father's got all the guards searching the grounds for you.”

The light went out of Isaac’s eyes. “He wants to see me?”

“You could say that.”

“Now?”

“Shall I tell him you’re busy?” Prince Barhtolomew asked with a sharp-edged smile.

“No, I…” Isaac looked down at the bowl he’d been stirring and then his own floury self in true despair. His curls, clothes, and hands were powdered white.

“I’ll have to wash up first,” he admitted very softly.

The prince’s smile grew ever sharper. “I’ll let Father know you’ll be late."

***

I slept in the men’s dorms that night, and the next. On the second morning after Prince Bartholomew’s visit to the pantry, Bellamina whispered, “It’s no good—us being seen with Isaac. He doesn’t mean to put you at risk, but he does. He’s never lived without the protection his position affords him—protection that doesn’t extend to any one of us. You should make an effort to stay away from him.”  
  
I nodded like I understood, and I continued to sleep in the dorms.  
  
Within a week, I was added to the team of meal couriers. Every morning, I prepared the dough for lunch and dinner, then hung up my apron in favor of a tray. I traveled from pantry, to larder, to buttery, to the heart of the kitchen: the hearth where the meat was cooked, usually into vegetable-heavy stews, and once I’d collected all the parts of a meal, I delivered it to whomever the head cook sent me to.  
  
I got lost on my first day, seeking the king’s own chambers in order to feed the guards stationed outside the doors there. By the time I found my way, the beer was warm and the food was cold. One guard reluctantly tucked into his meal. The other brought the back of his hand across my face so hard my feet left the floor. The tray struck the wall with me, and I crumpled into a heap at his feet.  
  
“Try again,” he said.  
  
I scrambled to collect the tankard and crockery shards before racing back to the kitchens.  
  
The second tray of food was still steaming when I delivered it.  
  
My routes changed all the time, the better to familiarize myself with the palace’s many passages and rooms, but every day I delivered lunch to those guards outside the king’s chambers, sometimes stopping in to drop off a tray with the physician on the way.  
  
The physician never spoke to me. I didn’t expect thanks—no slave did—but to go without even a hint of recognition after seeing him in the tack room was disconcerting. I wondered if he had already forgotten my face or, worse, disagreed with it. None of Isaac’s coconspirators had approved of his plan, but at least Bellamina was kind to me.  
  
Not wanting to offend him, or worse, place him or myself in some unrealized danger, I followed the physician’s lead, dropping off his lunch every day without a word.  
  
This went on for a week.  
  
On the eighth day he called out to me—“Wait”—as I was nearly out the door.  
  
I was unhappy to be delayed. The guards were waiting for me, and I hadn't delivered them anything less than steaming hot food since one of them hit me.  
  
But the physician only gestured to a delicate silver platter of sweetmeats on the table by the door and said, “Deliver those to the king’s chambers. If he’s in, don’t speak to him. Don’t look directly at him. If Isaac is with him, do not betray any hint that the two of you have met. Bow, place the try on a table, and leave.”  
  
My legs became sandbags beneath me. Out in the hall, I passed a chamber maid going the other way. She might have only just left the king’s rooms, walking fast and blushing furiously. I wondered if the guards had given her a hard time, but I was trying to keep a low profile, and didn’t have time to stop her and ask.  
  
I delivered the lunch trays and then stood there, staring at the door to the king’s chamber.  
  
“Beat it,” one of the guards said.  
  
I proffered the tray, hands shaking. “Sweetmeats for his majesty.”  
  
The guard—the same one who’d backhanded me when I delivered his lunch cold—filched a treat and crammed the whole thing into his mouth. The other guard didn’t bother to mask his horror at the theft.  
  
“What?” the first guard asked, laughing with his mouth full. “The royal food-tester is with His Highness at the council meeting. Those could’ve been poisoned—I might have just saved His Majesty’s life.” He held the door to the king’s chamber open for me, still snickering as he said, “Go on in.”  
  
The king’s chambers were even larger and more richly furnished and decorated than his dead queen’s. A fire crackled in the ornate hearth beneath a painting of a middle-aged man with pockmarked skin stretched over the same shaped face as the prince’s. The subject’s hair was black as well, the crown heavy and bejeweled. My feet sank into the plush rug as I stood there, gazing up at the portrait of the man I was supposedly going to help kill, platter of sweetmeats still clutched in both hands.  
“Psst.”  
  
I nearly dumped the platter.  
  
“Over here.”  
  
I whirled.  
  
Isaac watched me from the bed, which was tucked off to one side. He was mostly hidden by the voluptuous canopy in rich purples. I’d overlooked him, drawn instead to the fireplace and the artwork. But now I couldn’t take my eyes off him. My face burned as hot as the chamber maid’s I’d passed. He knelt on top of the quilt, stripped of everything but his jewelry, elbows jutting and hands behind his head. I recognized the cock ring glinting at the base of his rigid shaft.  
  
“Is that from the physician?” he asked.  
  
I nodded dumbly.  
  
“Set it there. Make sure the apple detail is nearest me.” He nodded to a table at the foot of the bed without removing his hands from behind his head. My stomach flipped. He was tied up like this.  
  
The silver platter was intricately pressed with different fruit designs around the lip; I turned it so the apple lined up with his knee.  
  
He tried to shift his weight, but wound up whining in agony or pleasure instead. I couldn’t stand another second. I remembered how his imagination had plagued him with horrors when he’d left me tied up. He had to be scared, incapacitated and left alone like this. I circled the bed, intending to untie him. But the nature of the restraint stopped me dead. His wrists weren’t simply lashed together—the cuffs were connected via chain to a metal bar. One end of the bar rested in the small of his back. The other end curved around and disappeared inside him.  
  
Still kneeling, back arched, he watched my face without even bothering to warn me. His cheeks were very pink, and his pupils were huge. I didn’t know how he could be so aroused in his current predicament, and I couldn’t even begin to hide my disgust.  
  
“Is that a meat hook?” I spluttered. “In your ass?”  
  
“It’s not sharp,” he said simply.  
  
“Everyone who comes in here can see you!”  
  
“Yes. I believe that’s the point.”  
  
I gawped.  
  
“I’m being taught a lesson,” Isaac explained, very patiently, all things considered. When my bewildered expression didn’t change, he went on, “It is a lesson in station. Bart told the king about me helping the pantler. This is to remind me that slaves work and have things to do, whereas I need only concern myself with waiting around for the king to lavish me with attention.”  
  
“But doesn’t that hurt?” I finally cried.  
  
“What—the hook in my ass? No. It is very distracting though.”  
  
“Can I do…anything?” I asked, despairing and powerless.  
  
Isaac cast a thoughtful glance at the door. “I don’t know when the king will be back, but he’s never returned so soon…”  
  
I dropped to my knees at the foot of the bed and took him into my mouth. He moaned and attempted a thrust, but immediately hissed in pain and held still once again. His arched back and planted knees gave me access to everything. When I cupped his balls, he sounded like he was crying.  
  
“Come up here,” he gasped, and I rose to kiss him, a hand still stroking his length. The moment my mouth was within range, his lips crashed against mine. He strained painfully against the restraints, nipping my bottom lip and skimming his tongue along my teeth. He whined into my mouth as I stroked him faster and returned the kiss with ferocity. We fell into an unspoken battle, him willing to hurt himself pushing forward, and me trying to spare him by pushing back. I set my teeth against his throat and he moaned; I sucked the tender skin there and he wiggled back, begging me, “Don’t leave a mark!” He surrendered after that, letting his head fall to my shoulder, crying out with every one of his little thrusts into my hand. His cock grew hot, almost feverish. The skin darkened and his balls drew up.  
  
And then the door hinges groaned.  
  
“Get under the bed!” Isaac hissed.  
  
I dropped instantly and rolled through the bed skirt.  
  
“What’s this?” asked the deep voice of the king, and I was sure he’d seen my boot disappear beneath his bed.  
  
“I had them sent up,” Isaac panted, and let myself breathe again when I realized he and the king were only discussing the platter of sweetmeats.  
  
The bed creaked beneath the king’s weight. Isaac was soon whining and moaning again, louder than any sound he’d made with me.  
  
“Were you good while I was away?” the king asked. I wanted to gag. Isaac barely found the words to answer before he was crying out again. Leather cuffs, a fine chain, and a hook with a metal ball in place of a sharpened tip clattered to the floor within reach of my hiding place. I pressed a fist to my mouth, forced to listen to Isaac’s rising volume as the king fucked him.  
  
The cries eventually dropped to whimpers, and after that, there was only the sounds of their breathing.  
  
“Bring us some wine, Isaac,” the king said.  
  
I could only see Isaac’s pink feet under the tiny gap between bed skirt and floor as he crossed the room and came back, pausing by the table where I’d left the platter of sweetmeats. He and the king ate and drank, barely speaking except for when the king said, “I don’t like thinking about you locked away all by yourself, Isaac. Promise to behave according to your station from now on, and we can put this week behind us.”  
  
Isaac had been trussed up like that every day for a week? I felt suddenly guilty of my time spent sleeping peacefully in the men’s dorms while he and I avoided drawing attention to each other.  
  
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Isaac said.  
  
“You’re always so formal.” I could hear the king’s weight shifting; could picture him leaning over to touch Isaac’s face. “You and Bart should spend more time together. You used to be so close.”  
  
“Yes, Your Majesty.”  
  
There came a series of clunks as the dirty dishes were set aside.  
  
“Lay down,” the king commanded, and I feared the worst. But it seemed they were merely settling in for a royal nap. The king’s snores rumbled through the chambers mere moments later, and Isaac slipped silently from the bed to peek under the skirt at me. Putting a finger to his lips for silence, he motioned me out, wrapped a silk robe around himself, and pushed me ahead of him into the hall.  
  
The guards were in stitches when we passed them.  
  
“Assholes!” Isaac shot back at them over his shoulder.


	11. Chapter 11

I expected him to be embarrassed, but he only held the silk robe closed and chattered on about the royal family and court politics the second we were out of range of the king’s chamber guards. Weeks had passed since Isaac and I last walked the halls together, but we fell into the old pattern like it had been no time at all. We were halfway back to Isaac’s room when I recognized a flight of stairs that would take me in the direction of the kitchens.

I paused there, and Isaac threw a questioning glance over his shoulder.

“I’ve still got work to do,” I said.

“Ah—right. I forgot.” He looked ashamed, like it was his fault he had all this free time.

I shifted my weight unhappily.

“And you’ve been sleeping in the dorms,” he added.

“Bellamina said…” I didn’t want to tell him what Bellamina said. So I made something up. “…that I should try to fit in. That it would be more convincing.”

“She was probably right. Pity, though. My tower’s been dreadfully cold without you to mind the hearth.”

“How long have you lived in that tower?”

“Years now.”

“And has the tower been dreadfully cold every day of every winter before I arrived?”

“In some ways.”

We stood there a moment longer, neither of us taking that first step toward our separate destinations. It was lucky there was no one else in the hall to witness us staring at each other like oafs.

“Are you hungry?” I blurted, unable to part from him.

His eyebrows shot up and he frowned.

“I could have something sent up for you. I’m going back to the kitchens.”

“Stick some of Bellamina’s cakes in the lift for me.”

I saluted and turned on my heel.

Bellamina’s eyes narrowed when I rushed into the pantry flushed and apologetic. I got lost for the first time in days, much to the chagrin of a few scholars’ grumbling stomachs. I dropped off the last of the dinner trays to a few stable hands and hoofed it back to the kitchens to help Bellamina finish cleaning the pantry. I no longer needed directions to the men’s dorms, and her small, private room was in the opposite direction. She bid me goodnight and left me to sweep up the last of the flour.

I was checking the pantry for any missed spots, about to blow out all but one taper, when I realized I’d forgotten to send Isaac his cakes.

It was dark, but I loaded up a plate and dropped it in the service lift. I turned the crank, but the box shifted downward instead of up.

The kitchen was on the ground floor. The lift only lowered a foot or two before grinding to a halt—creating a wide enough gap I could see the chain suspending the lift and, off to the side, connecting the cranks.

An idea struck me like a rock to the head.

I checked over my shoulder for witnesses, but even the scullery maid had gone to bed. Then I scrambled and squeezed through the gap between the top of the service lift and the hole in the wall. The lift rocked and rattled beneath me, but I held onto the chains and planted my feet, balancing my weight in the middle.

I leaned out far enough to grasp the length of chain that connected the cranks. I tugged with all my strength, and the lift shuddered upward an inch. I couldn’t help it—I laughed aloud at my success. I kept tugging and rising, up, up, up through the levels of the palace. This was nothing like my horrible journey bound and gagged inside the lift. Weeks of kneading bowl after bowl of dough imbibed me with an almost unfamiliar arm and upper body strength, and it was too dark to fear the height of the shaft I leaned out over to tug on the crank chain.

Mightily, I resisted the temptation to poke the small doors open a crack and spy into the rooms the lift served. I rose into a long stretch of unbroken darkness and knew I was passing through the queen’s chambers and Isaac’s tower. Sweat soaked my undershirt and I was panting, but I ignored my discomfort, hauling myself and the lift up the last few feet before nudging the door open.

There was no surprising him. The crank handle in his room would have been turning jerkily with my every heave. He only sat on the edge of his bed, wearing that same long nightshirt, and watched with one eyebrow raised as I made my graceless entrance into his room.

The tower was not dreadfully cold. In fact, it was oppressively hot, necessitating the hasty and immediate removal of all clothing. Flames roared in the small hearth, firewood stacked higher than I’d ever dared. Isaac squirmed and pushed back against me so urgently, I had to shove him down and hold him forcibly still. I slid my cock along the cleft of his ass, teasing us both, until even that small pleasure became a sort of torture. I didn’t want this to end. I couldn’t take him fast enough. Finally, one hand on the nape of his neck, the other on myself, I pushed past the tight ring of muscle at his entrance. Slowly at first, and then all at once, his body surrendered and opened to me. He whimpered just like in the king’s chambers, when his head fell onto my shoulder. I fucked him, and he made little noises and softly-spoken nonsense the whole time, as the temperature rose, and I committed the sounds he made and the warmth of the room to memory, thinking the whole time, So this is how he likes it.

Then he arched beneath me, butting back to force me in deeper than before. His body clenched around me and he clawed the rug, shoulders blades jutting and his forehead falling to the floor. I slowed down, amazed I’d made it this far, and he did nothing but breathe and position himself better beneath me as my pleasure chased his. I felt tingly all over, like something raw and skinned, and I held him against me even after I’d finished with him, till the last throb faded and we came back to our hopeless selves, laughing and disgusted at the state we were in, slippery with sweat and me smelling strongly of yeast from the kitchens.

He drew a bath. We squished in next to each other, sloshing water onto the rug. I didn’t want to let go of him. I held him as comfortably as I could, me leaning back against the edge and him resting against my chest, our legs folded and tangled to fit in the tub, and I told him I’d never been with anyone like that before. He laughed and said he could tell. Even stung, I didn’t let go of him. I tried to remind myself that everything Isaac did with me, he did for the plan—kill the king. His stupid genius plan that was going to get him and me and everyone else in on it killed. If letting me fuck him was what it took to stoke the fires of revolution in my coward’s breast, then he’d already proven himself committed to the cause.

I didn’t speak any of this aloud.

I decided it didn’t matter.

I remembered Bellamina’s warning to avoid Isaac, to be the responsible one, but I couldn’t muster the same fear and urgency I’d felt on its initial delivery.

The water cooled. Isaac snuggled in next to me and I kissed the top of his head, feeling very lucky and brave and in love with him, and not caring if he never felt the same way.


	12. Chapter 12

Sneaking back to the kitchens the next morning was a simple matter of looking as busy as any one of the numerous other slaves already up and attending their duties. Still, I was sure the words “I disregarded everything you said and snuck into Isaac’s tower to fuck him” was written on my face when I arrived in the pantry.

But Bellamina didn’t spare me so much as an odd glance, and we fell into our usual routine.

About mid-morning, I looked up to discover not only Isaac waiting in the doorway, but the other woman from the tack-room-meeting as well—the seamstress, with her dress stitched with dozens of bulging pockets and her many spectacles lined up on her head.

She didn’t speak a word to me as she stepped into the pantry; only unspooled a bit of tape, to first measure the breadth of my shoulders, and then the circumference of my upper arm. She stared at the marking of this second measurement with a face like she’d tasted something bitter.

“Eh?” Isaac nudged her.

She wound the tape away. “He’s still too scrawny.”

“But?”

“But he’s not as scrawny.”

Isaac cheered.

“I hope you’re not planning on snatching my new assistant away?” Bellamina said. “I’ve gotten used to having him.”

“No way,” Isaac said. “Not after we’ve finally seen some progress.”

“I’m starting to feel like a fattened calf,” I said self-consciously. “Why are you all so interested in my arms?” I didn’t tell them about last night—how much stronger I’d felt hauling on the service lift chain without the help of the crank.

Isaac clapped my back and said, “Tell me, Courier,” for that was my afternoon title, “have you memorized the palace?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the quickest way to the room with all the maps in it?”

“Up the stairs, through the receiving room, along the second-floor balcony; it’s the third door on the left.”

“And what’s the sneakiest way to get there?”

“Outside,” I said. “Climb the trellis.”

Isaac’s eyes widened. “I’d never thought of that…”

I grinned. I’d come up with the route on my way back from the stables one evening, looking up at the rear wall of the palace, which was covered almost entirely in vines, withered and brown for the winter but probably bursting with flowers come spring. I’d sent a silent plea to the heavens that it was my fate to live long enough to see the royal gardens in bloom.

“Well, I’m glad your time as a courier wasn’t wasted,” said Isaac, saving face. “Because it’s over.”

“Oh.” My smile fell away.

“I still have to attend lunch with the king, I should be free from my other duties much sooner than last week,” he said without a hint of blush. Bellamina focused on greasing a tray so the dough wouldn’t stick, and the seamstress was suddenly occupied with the contents of at least ten of her pockets.

“What…what have you got planned for me?”

“Horse-riding lessons,” Isaac said, filching a roll from a basket on his way out. “Among other things!”

* * *

True to his word, he was back before the first meal courier arrived for the lunch rolls. I rolled the last of the kneaded dough back into its bowl to rise and did my best to wipe the flour off my hands. After going nearly a week with the same set of work clothes, there wasn’t really anywhere on my person that wasn’t already dusted ghost-white.

“What if the prince catches you down here again?” I asked.

“He won’t if you’d just hurry.”

I couldn’t resist looking round for Bellamina’s approval—a single nod from her to me—before hanging up my apron and following him through the kitchens and out through the door in the hearth-room. It was the middle of the day, very clear and cold, beneath a sun that barely served to warm the back of your neck against the biting breeze.

Isaac didn’t bother trying to sneak. He walked confidently in the direction of the royal stables, and I could only scuttle along in his wake.

He took me to a stall in the very back, where a fuzzy bay pony was aggressively shaking its hay net to death.

“This is Cashmere,” Isaac said, throwing the stall door open just in time to give me a perfect view of the pony successfully detaching the hay net from its hook and slamming it down on the straw-strewn floor. “I call him Cash.”

The pony’s head jerked up at the sound of its name. Its withers were level with Isaac’s shoulders. Maybe in summertime it would have been sleek and graceful, but now it looked like a big shaggy dog.

Isaac took me to another stall, this one housing a much larger horse of a plodding, gentlemanly demeanor.

“And this is Roland,” he said, throwing the stall door open. “He’ll be yours for the day.”

“I’ve never been on a horse.” I retreated from Roland’s inquisitive nose-bump only to back into Cash, sneaking up behind me.

“Stable boy!” Isaac called. I thought he was talking to me until a sandy-haired youth poked his head down from the hayloft. “Get Cash and Roland saddled. My chaperone and I are going for a ride in the country.”

I’d never heard him give orders to anyone other than me before. My insides felt dark and twisty with jealousy, and then knotted up even tighter with shame that I would be jealous of something like being bossed around. Isaac, for his part, looked like he’d have preferred to dress the horses himself, but after a week of the king’s “lessons” on keeping to his station, he grudgingly stepped back so the stable boy could work.

“In here,” Isaac said, and led me to a chest in the back of the tack room. The chest was stained with age and covered in dust, but the garments inside were bright and fresh-smelling. “I hid them this morning,” he said, shaking out a pair of riding breeches, tunic, and jacket. “No one will believe you’re my chaperone if you look like the pantler’s assistant.”

I changed my costume. “Why do you need a chaperone?”

“Because the last time I went riding by myself I got robbed, remember?”

So—Isaac’s cover story had cost him yet another freedom, one I hadn’t even been aware of till now.

When I was dressed, the horses were ready. I stood eye-level with the saddle I was supposed to haul myself into and asked, “Wouldn’t it be better if I learned to ride on the little one?”

Isaac swung up onto Cash’s back easily. “Smaller doesn’t always mean easier. Stable boy! Bring my chaperone a mounting block.”

The stable boy squeaked in surprise, rushing to grab a stool for me. I still wasn’t high enough to swing my leg over the horse. The poor boy buzzed around me, obviously wanting to grab my legs like a puppet and hoist me up.

“Look, why don’t you just tell me how to do it,” I said gently.

He reddened, but pointed to the stirrup on my side. “That foot goes first.”

I stuck my boot into the stirrup and grabbed the saddle. For one dizzying moment I hung off the side of the horse, whose weight shifted ever so slightly beneath me. I thought I’d be hanging there, frozen in terror, till I died of old age. But then I felt the stable boy’s hands in the small of my back. He shoved hard, and between the two of us, I managed to swing my other leg over Roland’s back.

Isaac was laughing so hard he was about to roll off his pony. After a few deep breaths, he wiped the tears from his eyes and said, “Give me your reins.”

“How will I steer this thing?”

“I don’t think you’re ready to steer that thing—come on. Roland doesn’t deserve you yanking on his poor mouth the whole time.”

I handed the reins to the stable boy to hand to Isaac. Roland placidly followed Cash out of the stables and across the palace grounds. I’d never felt less in control of my body, and mine was a body that had been bought and sold at least three times. The horse’s withers and hips dipped and rolled beneath me; it swayed and bounced and twitched as it pleased, and I could only cling on to the front of the saddle and a handful of mane and pray Isaac would be satisfied with a lap around the palace before calling an end to my first riding lesson.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Isaac brought us both to the gates, exchanged a few words with the guards, pointed to me when they asked something about chaperones, and then nudged Cash out into the streets beyond.

Cash and Roland went eagerly, increasing their pace to a trot that was sure to rattle me right out of the saddle. I had never seen the noble district from horseback before, and the noble district had never seen me, mounted on a horse from the royal stables, wearing fine riding clothes in the king’s colors. Instead of tittering and sly glances, Isaac and I received whistles and cat calls.

One young woman sitting by the fountain with her girlfriends waved a handkerchief to catch our attention. “Isaac!” she called. “Who’s that you’ve got with you?”

I leaned back for a better look at her. My shifting weight caused Roland to slow and nearly stop, before Isaac pushed Cash a little faster and dragged us both along down the street from the women, laughing at our hasty retreat.

“Couple of big dumb idiots,” I heard him muttering.

“Don’t insult Roland like that,” I said, patting the horse’s thick neck. He hadn’t dropped me onto the cobblestones yet, and I was growing fond of him.

“Those girls probably thought you’re one of the king’s cousins or nephews or something. You look the part, in those clothes.”

“So, what’s wrong with that?” I sat up a little straighter, enjoying the feel of my nice clothes against my skin. They weren’t scratchy at all, and instead of laces, the jacket had gold frogs all the way down.

Isaac refused to look back at me, but the red creeping up his nape betrayed him. “So they’re only flirting with you because they think you’re royalty.”

I shook my head, grinning. How was his sleeping with me to keep me loyal to his cause any different? At least those girls by the fountains were only hoping for an invitation to a ball or something—not to commit treason. No one had ever waved their handkerchief at me before. I wanted to enjoy it.

I had no idea where Isaac was taking me. We passed through the wealthiest parts of the king’s city, exploring the noble district, winding up and down wide, clean streets and ignoring the occasional catcalls, leaving behind only horse droppings for the street sweepers as evidence we passed through there at all.

After all the turns and side streets we took, I was sure to be lost. But, to my surprise, I recognized the next street we turned down. A few of the girls from earlier were still sitting around the fountain.

“We’re already going back?” By the position of the sun, we’d hardly been out an hour—and Isaac still held my reins, leading Roland while I clung on to the saddle for dear life.

“Did you miss us, Isaac?” called the same girl who’d waved her handkerchief at us earlier.

Isaac looked directly at her, affording her a full view of his face, but didn’t so much as nod or wave as we continued plodding in the direction of the palace.

As soon as the young ladies were out of sight—but before the palace gates and the guards stationed there came into view—Isaac steered Cash hard into an alley.

The alleys in the noble district smelled significantly less like piss, thanks to the gutters leading to drain pipes beneath the cobblestones, but the firewood stacked there looked the same as it did anywhere. Isaac dragged a sack out from behind the pile. The burlap was waxed to keep out moisture. The sack itself probably cost more than its contents: two hooded cloaks, tattered; some britches, patched on the backsides and knees; and one eye patch.

Isaac pulled me down off my horse.

“Oh, no!” I lamented, hugging my finely-dressed self. “Let me wear it a little longer.”

He swore at my so vehemently that I tore off the outerwear in the king’s colors and scrambled into the patched-up rags before the chill could set into my bones. Isaac did the same. Then we fought over who got to wear the eye patch. I was taller, so I won.

He stripped the horses of their gilded saddles and blankets (also in the king’s colors) and used a bit of dirt from a nearby garden bed to daub over the silver stitching in their bridles. I watched, despairing, as he gracelessly—but with some measure of ability—hauled himself onto Cash’s bare back. I looked from Cash to Roland. The difference in size was staggering, and now I had no stirrup to plant my foot in.

“Oh for fate’s sake,” said Isaac, and walked Roland backward toward the firewood. “Climb up the pile.”

Abandoning my dignity, I scrambled onto the patient horse.

Riding bareback was even worse than riding in an expensive wood and leather saddle.

“How much longer are we going to be out here?” I asked over the jouncing. “Won’t the king, um—miss you?”

Isaac pulled his hood up to conceal his face. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I just don’t want you to—”

“The king knows I’m out on a pleasure ride,” Isaac snapped over his shoulder. “He knows I’ll be gone most of the afternoon, and he knows I’ve got a chaperone so he doesn’t have to worry. He’s happy because going out on stupid pleasure rides is something someone of my station would be expected to do. So as far as the guards are concerned, Isaac and his chaperone were seen going out the gate shortly after lunch time, and as far as the nobles are concerned, Isaac and his chaperone were seen going back toward the gate still in one, nicely-dressed piece. Now that we’re done wasting time creating an alibi, we can actually go do something that matters. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He pushed the horses into a brisk trot. Keeping our heads low and our hoods up, we passed through the wealthy district with none of the catcalls and whistles. Dressed in our cloaks and patched britches, we looked poor enough to be beneath notice, but didn’t stink so much as to attract attention. Like two peasants going home after completing some service call for one of our wealthier countrymen, we passed into the middle district, comprised mainly of long, two- and three-story buildings for housing multiple families, and into the outer slums.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I’d never been this far from the city center. Most people were too poor to own slaves out here, and few of them had anything to offer that a well-to-do keeper might send one of his own slaves on an errand this way. It would have been too great a risk. Slaves were expensive, and expensive things didn’t last long in the slums.

Isaac slowed Cash down till the animals walked side-by-side.

“Why are you unhappy? You’re making Roland nervous.” He pointed to the big horse’s turned-back ears.

“He ought to be nervous,” I hissed, hoping no one overheard me. “This place is dangerous.”

“Why? What makes it dangerous?”

“Look around!” I gestured to the crooked houses leaning against one another, made out of wood instead of longer-lasting stone, their top floors sticking out farther than their bottoms. The streets were narrow, with deep wagon tracks in the mud. There were no fountains, no benches, and no streetlamps—probably because all three were at risk of being stripped of valuable materials. Dirty children played savage games, shrieking and chasing each other between horses’ legs and market stalls while all the noble children were in school right now. And oh! The market stalls! Like nothing in the commerce district around the slave barn and auction block. Flies buzzed over the fruit, what little there was of it. Most of the fabric looked like it had been cut from old clothes not worth patching and stuffed into a bin as scraps.

“Everything is filthy.”

“No, it isn’t,” Isaac said. “Most of it’s just old.”

“The streets are mud.”

“They’re unpaved. And it’s wintertime.”

I turned my nose up. “This is where criminals go after they’ve been driven out of polite society.”

Isaac pointed to a shop window. Inside, a man hunched over a vat of hot wax, dipping tapers again and again.

“That man’s making candles,” he said.

I read the sign over the door. The chandler was supposedly family-owned and operated for at least five generations, based on the engraved year. His great-great-great grandfather must have done something horrible to curse his descendents to a fate in this dreadful place. I pointed out as much, but Isaac only sighed.

We passed by one stone structure, humble yet (even I had to admit) well-kept, with colored glass in the windows—a miracle of fate they weren’t broken or stolen yet—and wide, smooth steps inviting all who passed on the street to ascend and enter through the propped-open wooden doors. I could smell incense burning as we passed by. It was too dimly-lit to make out the interior, even with the doors flung open.

“What is that place?” I asked.

“Oh—that’s a temple,” Isaac said.

“Okay. What’s a temple?”

“It’s where people to go pray. And I think they have meetings there once a week, but I’ve never sat through one.”

“Pray to what?”

“Some god.” Isaac shrugged.

“What god? Fate?”

“People don’t pray to fate,” Isaac said darkly. “They just blame it when they want an excuse not to help others.”

I craned my neck for one last look at the temple before we put it behind us.

Isaac reined Cash and Roland to a halt. “Do you want to go in?”

“I don’t want anything,” I said quickly.

Isaac quirked an eyebrow.

“Sorry. Old habit.” I looked at the temple again, wondering what praying looked like. “Are we allowed?”

“All are welcome.”

“Have you ever been?”

He held my gaze a long time before answering, “A few times.”

We hitched the horses out front and left a few silver coins with some kids playing on the steps to mind them.

Then we stepped inside.

It took a few blinks for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The narrow, colored windows let in a little sunlight, and lamps flickered along the walls, but it was like walking into a cave after the bright, busy streets.

Long benches took up most of the space, all in rows facing away from the entrance. Most of the seats were empty, except for a few people sitting well apart from one another, either gazing at the altar opposite the door, or resting their foreheads on their clasped fists.

It was so quiet. Our footsteps echoed as Isaac led us to one of the benches in the back row, nearest the entrance.

We sat down. His eyes fixed on the altar, expression unreadable, almost blank. My own gaze traveled around the room, latching onto one person, then another. There were only six of us total, counting Isaac and me. I waited hungrily for someone to do something. I could still hear the slums around us, but the voices and rumbling wagons and squealing pigs were faint through the thick stone walls, as if far away.

Finally, after what felt like an age—if time retained its meaning in the temple; I wasn’t sure—someone stood up. My attention snapped to him, certain that whatever he did next would help me understand this place.

He turned.

He left.  
No one else moved.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered to Isaac.

At some point, his eyes had closed. He didn’t open them when he said, “I told you. They’re praying.”

“One guy left,” I reported, in case Isaac had missed it.

“I guess he was done praying.”

I wanted to claw my eyes out, then his.

He sighed and looked at me. “People pray for all kinds of things. It’s like a conversation you have with yourself and the universe. I don’t really understand it much better than you do.”

“The universe,” I said.

“You know—everything around you. What you can see and what you can’t.”

“These people are all talking to the air?”

“Sure.” He looked exasperated, which exasperated me. I wasn’t trying to not understand.

“What are they praying for?” I asked. “What do they want?”

“Most of them are probably asking to change their fate. Maybe they want more money, or for a sick person to get better, or for someone far away to come home. Or maybe they’re saying thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“If you pray for something and it happens, it’s good etiquette to say thanks.” He scratched the back of his head. “I think.”

“Thanks to who? Fate? Fate doesn’t need our prayers or our thanks. It’s already decided.”

“You could say prayer is like asking the universe to change your fate.”

I put my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands.

Isaac closed his eyes again.

More time passed—or didn’t, I don’t know. The air and sound quality in the temple was weird. Everything seemed to be humming, but not in a way I felt in my ears. Another man left. A woman came in.

“You can’t change your fate,” I said. “Nobody can.”

“What’s your fate?” Isaac asked.

“To be a slave.”

He cracked an eyelid to look at me. “And to die a slave?”

I stared down at my feet. “I thought so.”

“But you’re helping me commit treason.”

“And so far I’m still a slave.”

“Do you see how convenient it is,” said Isaac, “that everyone from the king to the slaves believes their fate can’t be changed?”

I furrowed my brow. “You’ve come here to pray before, haven’t you? Did you ever get an answer? Has anything ever changed just because you asked the air?” Some nasty feeling I couldn’t describe made my tone bitter.

“The last time I came here, Cash got spooked and ran away. I had to walk all the way back to the palace on foot.”

I leaned back in the bench and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling vindicated in my awfulness.

“I took the quickest route—which was past the auction block and through the barn.”

I swallowed, suddenly chilled through.

“That was the day I found you,” Isaac finished.

He was silent. I was speechless.

Struggling to put the words in order, like a drunk stringing beads, I said, “Sometimes…fate seems like coincidence…”

Isaac smiled sadly. “Sure.”

I wanted to take back what I’d said.

Before I could figure out how to comfort him, he popped up and whacked imaginary dust from his pants.

“Come on. We’re already late.”


	13. Chapter 13

As we rode farther from the palace, the slums thinned, the structures grew smaller and sparser. Grass, dry and brown, grew between some of the houses. Instead of shops, animal sties sat back off the road. Then the city ended all at once, and the muddy road ran on with only a low stone wall to keep it company before the wall, too, petered out after some distance into a tumble of stray stones.

I leaned back and Roland planted his heavy hooves, drawing the smaller Cash up short.

Isaac twisted around to ask, “What’s wrong? Why have we stopped?”

I didn’t have a good answer. Before us, the road wound away farther than I could see, following the natural rise and fall of the land, the view unobstructed by houses or market stalls. The only buildings were far apart from one another, tall and cylindrical, with doors higher than any man could reach. Less than a mile from the edge of town sat a different kind of tower with huge paddles turning in the wind.

The rural architecture was foreign to me. Worse were the endless stretches of fields and forests. Sheep dotted the landscape. A black-and-white dog lay in the cold sunlight, guarding the flock, his eyes fixed intently on our horses. At the farthest edge of the field, trees grew numerous and close together, tangling their wind-stripped, naked branches.

I’d only seen trees growing in rows before, lining the streets of the wealthier districts. It was a punishable crime to cut one down.

A thousand questions sprang to mind—a thousand things I’d lived with all my life suddenly thrown into a new light. Where did all the firewood come from? Who chopped it up? Who transported it? Where did the wool for our winter clothes come from? Who spun the linen for lighter material in the summer? What about the leather for our boots? The grain for our bread? I’d never seen a sheep in person before—only goats and pigs in the marketplace. I’d never stood on a hill and looked toward the horizon with nothing to block my view.

“If you’re going to faint,” said Isaac, “try and fall off your horse away from the rocks.” He nodded to what remained of the crumbling wall, stretching back toward civilization, connecting me like an umbilical cord to my old life and everything I thought I knew but really only took for granted.

“How far does it go?”

“Uh.” Isaac looked doubtfully at the low wall, perhaps unsure how to break it to me it had already ended.

“How big is everything?” I asked, pointing down the road. “Where does it end?”

He scrunched up his nose and looked around. “Well… You remember I told you I was born somewhere far away? It was an island—land with water on all sides. We had to take a boat to get to the mainland—this continent. It was maybe five days at sea. Then we took a carriage north. That was another five days.”

“The world is ten days wide,” I said in awe. Till then, my journeys had been measured in steps or, very rarely, hours.

“Um, no.” Isaac chuckled. “The nearest island is ten days away from this city.” His head tipped to the side. “You know where the map room is. Haven’t you looked at any of them?”

I shook my head. “I can only read letters and music. Another slave taught me my letters—I’m not even sure if she had permission. My keeper taught me music so I could assist him in his compositions. It was not to my keeper’s benefit that I understand maps, and it is not a slave’s place to be curious.”

He turned Cash around and walked back to me, till he could look up into my face.

“You’re not a slave anymore,” he said, touching my knee. “It’s only a disguise.”

I scratched my arm through my jacket and shirt, where my slave tattoo was concealed beneath my clothes.

“Do you know why none of your keepers ever taught you to read maps?” he asked. “Do you know why the slave who taught you to read would have been punished if you were discovered?”

“Because those skills are unnecessary to the duties I performed.”

He shook his head, curls brushing his round cheeks. “If you looked at a map, and saw how many other countries there were—you might run away. If you read a history book, and knew which countries outlawed slavery—you’d know where to run to.”

I licked my dry lips, trying very hard to breathe normally. “There are… there’s more than one country? And the king—he—?”

“He is only the king in this country,” Isaac said. “Other countries have other kings. Some countries don’t have kings at all.”

I clutched my chest. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me down for a kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize how little you knew. I don’t know how much I can teach you—I only know what I’ve heard. But I’ll take you into the palace library, and you can look for some books on history. We’ll hide them in my room.”

I nodded jerkily. My world was exploding. It was the best I could do.

* * *

We rode another hour through sleepy farmland and scraggly copses of trees. I saw a lot of sheep. The novelty of sheep wore off after the fifth or sixth hundredth specimen. From a distance, they looked like soft white balls. From less of a distance, they smelled quite bad.

The first hint we were nearing our destination loomed atop the next hill in the form of an ancient stone barn. Beyond that sat a new manor hall, constructed of logs, with a thatch roof. Winter greens grew in rows outside what must have been a separate kitchen building, also stone. A few sullen-looking goats and their sullen-looking goatherd huddled next to a haystack, squinting against the cold at Isaac and me as we rode into the arms of the humble manor.

Whatever homey sounds there may have been were drowned out by the constant ringing of metal. Each hammer-strike echoed as continuous cracks skipping over the hills. The royal horses tossed their heads, annoyed. No one came out to greet us as Isaac took us around the hall.

Smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. I sniffed hopefully.

A small forge backed up to a grassy knoll. The structure was little more than a roof propped up on posts and a chimney. A blacksmith in a sweat-yellowed sleeveless tunic under a leather apron and gloves, face hidden by a leather cap and huge goggles, abused a chunk of red-hot steel into a sort of curved square shape. Bits and pieces of armor lay strewn around the forge. A sword in its scabbard and belt hung from the rafters.

“HEY!” Isaac shouted at the exact moment the hammer fell, burying his voice.

He tried again—“HEY!—but the hammer struck in perfect time once more.

This went on for four or five more heys and perfectly-timed hammer strikes.

He frowned, waiting.

The hammer paused at the apex of its swing, the blacksmith’s attention fixed on the curved square, which had long since cooled to black.

Isaac said, “We—”

The hammer fell.

Isaac’s explosion of profanity was lost under a series of rapid-fire strikes before the blacksmith finally threw down the hammer and planted both gloved hands on either side of the metal square, now too cool to shape.

“Why are you here, Isaac?” The voice sent me reeling, till the blacksmith looked up, revealing the lower half of a soot-stained face.

“Sword practice,” said Isaac. He pointed at me. “Teach him to sword.”

The blacksmith marched out of the forge, snatching up two sticks on the way—blocks of wood carved like swords. Toys, I thought.

“Get off that horse.”

I obeyed.

“Hold this.”

I accepted a toy sword.

The blacksmith stood squarely in front of me, still wearing the cap and goggles. I looked between our identical toy swords and waited for instruction. I watched, mute, as the blacksmith’s arm drew back—as the wooden sword arced toward me—before cracking itself in half over my head.

* * *

When I came to, Isaac and the blacksmith were screaming at each other over where I lay sprawled on the frozen ground. Their voices crashed together like cymbals and rocks. Colors and light melted into puddles. My stomach heaved and I was sick in the grass. The motion was enough to upset my throbbing head further; I thought I’d pass out again.

The blacksmith tore off her cap and goggles and smacked them against Isaac’s chest. Her golden-tan skin was a darker version of his, but her brown hair had reddish undertones instead of gold, and was tightly kinked instead of curled. Freckles covered every inch of her exposed skin, the same reddish-brown color as her hair.

“I can’t make a slave into a knight,” she said.

“We don’t need another knight,” Isaac said. “We’ve got you! We just need someone who can swing a sword around half-convincingly and buckle it on the correct hip for weddings and funerals!”

“Even half-convincingly is too much to ask for. I can’t teach him anything. He’s broken. There’s no fight in him.”

“There is,” Isaac insisted. “I’ve seen it.”

The blacksmith-knight scowled and turned away, cap and goggles dangling from one hand. “I’ve had a letter from Bella.”

“So?” Isaac said.

“She says he’s a nice boy. And he does learn fast. But—”

“So teach him!”

“BUT, I said—BUT—he’ll never be what you want him to be. He was born into servitude. And you know how these mainlanders are—they don’t believe in going against fate.”

Isaac threw himself down on a stone bench to sulk. “I’m so sick of talking about fate today.”

The knight came to squat by me. Her broad shoulders eclipsed the sun. I flinched from her hand, but she only caught my chin and held my head still. It felt like the ground and my body were still rolling around.

“Did you kill him?” Isaac asked.

“No—better that I had, if it would convince you to abandon this…this folly, or at least start over with someone who wasn’t conditioned to be obedient even in death.”

“I don’t want to start over. I want him.”

“Great.” She let go of my chin and stood up. “So you’re fucking him too.”

“Says who!”

“You promised you wouldn’t get attached.”

“SAYS WHO!”

“Help me bring him inside.”

“No. I’m taking him back to the palace. I’m not giving you a chance to stick a convenient knife in his ribs.”

“Gemma made plum pie.”

“Did she put the sugar on the crust like—NO! I’m taking him home.”

“He can’t ride a horse like this.”

“Sure he can! Come on, No-Name, we’re getting out of here.” He jumped up from his bench and tugged on my arm, forcing me to sit upright—till I spilled more of my guts all over his pant legs. “Augh!” he cried, jumping back and releasing me to fall again. My skull bounced on the hard ground and I cried out in agony.

“Oh fuck—you really have killed him!” Isaac wailed.

“It’s just a knock on the head—he’ll be on his feet come morning.”

Isaac fussed over me. His distress must have moved the mean blacksmith-knight at least a little, because she scoffed and stalked off toward the log manor hall, saying only, “Keep him still. I’ll get Gemma and we can carry him inside.”

Alone with Isaac, I focused on breathing through the dizziness and stench of vomit. He took off his cloak and tucked it under my head, jostling me unbearably in his attempt at kindness. Goose bumps puckered up along his bare arms and the wind fluttered his thin undershirt. I worried he’d be cold. He was always cold.

His mouth drew into a thin line and his blue eyes looked bright and wet.

“Why’d you just stand there?” he asked.

“What was I supposed to do?” My voice came out as a slurred rasp.

“Hit her back! Hit her first would have been better.”

“She didn’t tell me to.”

“She stuck a practice sword in your hand!”

“I’m sorry, Isaac, I… I didn’t know I was allowed.”

The furious light in his eyes spilled down his cheeks as tears. I lay there staring up at his wet face feeling very sad and sorry for myself, wishing to do anything that would make him stop crying and hopefully prevent me getting hit in the head again.

The knight came back with another woman, and between the two of them—plus one very unhelpful Isaac twittering at their elbows—they managed to lug me inside. The pain of being moved was unprecedented. I won’t say I passed out again—only that I wish I had.


	14. Chapter 14

My final resting place was to be a cot in the manor hall. Isaac lay down beside me and slept through most of his vigil. He was supposed to be keeping me awake. Still, I was sorry when the knight came back and made him leave before dark.

“The king will look for you at dinner,” she said, boxing his pierced ears. “The last thing I need is a bunch of guards storming the manor.”

Despite being rushed out the door, he knelt by my cot one last time.

“I’ll leave Roland,” he said. “Come to the palace’s side gate tomorrow.”

Side gate? I wondered.

He kissed the top of my head. The feather-light brush of lips was about as comforting as a rock smashed against my too-sensitive skull, but I smiled for him anyway.

And then he was gone.

Great! I thought. Now I can die in peace without upsetting him directly.

The knight thumped my way and stood over me, fists on hips, glaring down at where I lay.

Well, maybe not “in peace.” I couldn’t help but cringe.

“I’m not going to do anything to you,” she sneered.

A snort from Gemma in the cooking area drew the knight’s ire.

“I’m not going to do anything else to you,” she amended through gritted teeth.

I did my best to look relaxed, unafraid. Perhaps I schooled my expression too well; she mistook the shift as an invitation to sit on the edge of my cot.

“My name is Etta,” she said.

I attempted a small nod.

“Well? What’s yours, then?”

This again. It was easier not to speak.

“Isaac was wrong to drag you into this,” Sir Etta said. “You may look the part—with a little effort—but that’s it. If you keep going down this road, you’re going to get yourself—probably all of us—killed.”

I blinked.

“Maybe…” She sighed heavily. “Maybe the best thing would be to stay here.” She winced at her own idea, but didn’t recant. “You’re probably used to lighter work than we do—we don’t have much use for a year-round bookkeeper—but if you’re as quick as Bella says, we can find somewhere to put you.”

I sagged deeper into the cot. It wasn’t a bad offer. I still had a slave mark, so I couldn’t own my own property or manage my own estate. But I could live out here—live, as in stay alive—and be useful to someone.

But I would still be a slave. Despite the fact that Sir Etta broke a board over my head, I didn’t think she’d be a cruel keeper. Gemma and the little goatherd—likely Gemma’s son—appeared well cared-for.

But I didn’t want to be put somewhere.

Sir Etta must have taken my continued silence for addled confusion. She patted my blanket and said, “Get some rest. We’ll talk about it come morning.”

* * *

Morning took its time in the coming.

Every hour, someone shook me awake. Most often it was Sir Etta, still half-asleep herself, sour-faced in the firelight and probably thinking it would be awfully convenient to just let me die in my sleep. A few times, it was Gemma peering down at me with an expression of sweet concern, which wasn’t so bad. She gave me a little broth to drink, and once helped me sit up and find the chamber pot, pretending as though propping men upright while they aim was all in a night’s work.

Shortly before dawn, it was the goatherd at my bedside, a boy of only seven or eight harvests. But I don’t think his visit was one of the scheduled attempts to keep me breathing. Gemma shouted at him to scamper off and let me rest the moment I opened my eyes.

He bolted outside, back to his goats, as I sat up with a groan. The chamber pot by my cot had been emptied while I dozed. I was embarrassed all over again.

“Don’t rush yourself,” Gemma said. “You’ve got an impressive lump on your head.”

“No, I—I’m not used to sleeping in anyway.”

She smiled over the basket of vegetables she was scrubbing. She was older than me, maybe even older than Sir Etta’s thirty-some harvests, with a red, weathered face and chapped hands. Her hair, yellow and dry like straw, formed a long braid down her back. She was mostly bosom. I’d never seen a slave as plump as her; most keepers didn’t think we were worth the extra food.

Yesterday was a blur of pain, but my headache had subsided to a manageable throb, affording me my first good look around the manor hall’s interior. The logs were tightly packed and daubed with mud to keep out the drafts. The structure couldn’t have been more than a few years old; the cozy resin-scent of sap still permeated the warm hall. The floor was packed earth, strewn with reeds and straw. Windows near the ceiling let in more than enough light to count the long tables and benches, seating for up to a hundred. But for now, it was just me and Gemma in the huge empty space.

“Where is everyone?” I asked. Surely two women and a tiny goatherd couldn’t run a manor all by themselves—even if one of those women was a blacksmith and a knight. And, unless Gemma was intending to stew enough carrots and potatoes in one day to last them till next spring, she was making a lot more food than two-and-a-half people could eat.

“They’ll be along this evening,” Gemma said. “Etta’s is a wee manor—don’t tell her I said so—but she’s got a few farmers and their families, plus a man building us a grain mill, so’s we won’t have to pay the tax to use the king’s. A few guards too, but Etta sent them out hunting yesterday morning and told them not to come back without a stag each—she does so whenever they start looking too fat and comfortable—the guards I mean, not the stags—but don’t tell them I said so.”

It was hard to pay attention with my skull still smarting, and my mind threatened to drift as her words tilted in the direction of gossip, till I remembered Bellamina’s warning that even gossip could prove critical. I snapped myself back to attention, absorbing what I could. Farmers. Grain mills—or, no, no grain mill. And venison. Maybe.

“If Sir Etta’s manor is so small, and she doesn’t have any valuables worth guarding full-time,” I began, “how can she afford slaves?”

Gemma’s scrub brush slipped off the carrot she was cleaning. “Etta doesn’t keep slaves!”

“Not even you?”

She frowned. I might have offended her. But instead of rebuking me, she only scrubbed furiously at some dirt I couldn’t see. “Wasn’t there something you and Etta needed to talk about this morning?”

It was the politest dismissal I’d ever received.

“Right.” I pulled on my boots and left her to it.

* * *

Sir Etta wasn’t hard to find. I just followed the ringing back to the forge. With her cap and goggles on, she didn’t notice me right away, and kept on hammering and firing that same unfortunate square from yesterday. Now and then she’d hold the square up with her tongs and compare it to the natural curve of her shoulder, till on the third try she burned her arm and dropped her tools, cursing.

The completed pieces of her hodgepodge armor still lay scattered on various workbenches or hung from pegs around the forge. About half the pieces appeared…well, not poorly made, but done without any particular flare, the surfaces still pitted with hammer strikes rather than the fine engraving I’d seen on some of the knight’s armor during parades in the city. Only her helmet appeared to be of expert craftsmanship, with a dragon lounging like a cat above the visor.

“Did you steal it?”

If I startled her, she hid it well—merely laid the hammer aside and looked up at me.

“The helmet,” I clarified. “Did you steal it?”

She was silent behind her foggy goggles.

I clasped my hands behind my back. “Not very chivalrous of you.”

“He grabbed my ass,” she said. “How’s that for chivalry?” Then she took up her hammer again and turned it over in her hands, saying, “I’ve been thinking about the best place to put you. For now, I believe that’s here in the manor house with—”

“No, thank you.”

The corner of her mouth twisted beneath her goggles. “Excuse me?”

Her tone didn’t encourage a spirit of debate, but I steeled myself and pressed on. “No, thank you. Your offer is exceedingly generous. Perhaps a better opportunity than any slave has ever been granted. But I made a promise to Isaac. I want to go back to the palace.”

“You want to go back to the palace so you can be summarily unmasked and executed?”

“I don’t want to be a slave anymore.”

“You wouldn’t be a slave here,” she bit out.

“No, I suppose that’s true,” I said evenly. “I would just be someone who works here my whole life and never leaves or does anything out of the ordinary for fear of death if my slave tattoo is discovered outside your walls.”

She ripped off her cap and goggles to glare at me properly. I was eternally grateful for the work bench between us, but the array of metal-working tools at her disposal did worry me. Then she cracked a grin and said, “Well, all right then. I suppose you’ll be wanting your horse back, that you may ride off into the sunset of your life.”

“Yes—later—I would like my horse back.”

“And what comes before later?”

I took the practice sword down from its hook in the forge. “First, I want to know which hip this goes on for weddings and funerals, and also how to swing it around convincingly.”

“Yesterday it was only half-convincingly.”

“Yesterday you hit me in the head and nearly killed me. For surviving the first serious attempt on my life, I think I deserve both halves of convincingly.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” She tossed her leather gloves onto the workbench. “Let’s see if the rest of you can keep up with your mouth.”


	15. Chapter 15

We spent the morning trading blows in the courtyard. Gemma watched from the entrance to the hall; Roland and the knight’s horse poked their noses out of their stalls; and the goatherd and all his goats clustered around the well, occasionally bleating their approval whenever Sir Etta thwacked me hard enough to echo off the stone buildings.

I rubbed the newest welt on my thigh and stomped back to my starting place.

“Why don’t you fight?” Sir Etta demanded, sword down at her side.

I lifted my sword into the starting position the way she’d taught me. “I’ve been fighting you all morning! I’ve done everything you told me!”

“That’s not fighting. Your opponent isn’t going to tell you where to strike and when to parry.”

“Yes, but a teacher might condescend to do so!”

She sighed, staring up at the sky, then flew at me suddenly, sword raised, delivering a storm of blows and jabs that sent me into a panicked retreat. I forgot everything she’d taught me as I backed up till I hit the well, then, still only blocking about a quarter of her lightning strikes, scooted around it. The goats bleated in terror as I stumbled into their midst. They scattered. Sir Etta kept coming. I didn’t have time to put the well between us as I’d hoped. If I turned and ran, she’d probably kill me for my cowardice.

I was out of ground and out of body parts she hadn’t hit. Desperate to end my punishment, I clamped down my arm down over her sword where it struck my ribs, then yanked it from her grasp.

Once she was disarmed, I tapped her with my own sword.

“Got you,” I panted.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah—good job. I mean, I only had to kill you a hundred times before you were willing to fight back like it matters.”

I frowned at her, a sword in each of my hands.

“I’ve seen men fight like you,” she said. “Willing to take a hit if it gives them an advantage—knowing they won’t outlive their opponent by more than a few minutes.”

“Maybe they were fighting for something bigger than themselves. Something worth dying for.” I tried to imagine what I’d take a real sword to the gut to defend. Isaac, maybe? I wasn’t sure. I’d only know him a few weeks; I’d known me all my life, and I was pretty fond of keeping myself alive.

“Let me tell you right now.” She took the swords from me and pressed their crossed edges to my throat. Dull as they were, I still wasn’t eager to feel the pressure on my windpipe increase. I held perfectly still when Sir Etta said, “Nothing is worth dying for. I’ve seen slaves and warriors go willingly to their deaths on someone else’s orders. Whatever you think your fate is, you have to cast it aside. I can teach you the positions and moves till we’re black and blue, but if you leave this manor believing the value of your life is based on anything other than the ferocity with which you’re willing to defend it, then there’s no point. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Tell me you’ll do better next time.”

“I’ll do better.”

“Good.” She shoved both practice swords into my belt. “Let’s get you back to the palace.”

* * *

I held Roland’s reins out for her to take. She laughed in my face.

“I don’t know how to ride!”

“You got here, didn’t you?”

“By clinging on to the saddle!”

“Get on the damn horse,” she snapped, no longer laughing.

I did my best.

She brought her mare alongside Roland. “That is a palace horse, bred and trained for pleasure riding. His number one concern is keeping you on his back.”

“Sure.”

“Say thank you.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Not to me—the horse.”

“Um—thanks, Roland.”

“Be specific.”

“Thank you, Roland, for not causing me any head injuries.”

Sir Etta’s eyes narrowed, but a smile fought its way out the corner of her mouth. She nudged her mare into a walk and, thankfully, Roland followed without waiting for instruction.

“Try not to be a sack of grain on his back,” she said. “He’s doing his best to please you, and you’re tense as a board. How do you think that makes him feel? The least you can do is act like you’re having a nice time so he knows he’s doing a good job.”

“I’ll fall off if I relax.”

“You won’t. Sit up straight. Your knees and hands are going to work together to guide him. But if I catch you yanking his bit, I’ll knock your teeth out. Now watch me and do as I do.” Her knees and hands had hardly twitched before her mare’s speed increased to a trot.

Fortunately for me, Roland ignored the worst of my fumbling and opted to simply follow the pretty girl-horse’s lead.

* * *

A crowd blocked the main road through the slums. At first, people moved out of the horses’ way, and Sir Etta kept us at a brisk pace, breaking stride only for the very young or very old. But as we ventured farther down the muddy lane, people grew more packed together, forcing our horses to slow down or risk trampling someone. Whispers about the temple reached my ears. Not far from the stone building itself, one voice rose above the others in the crowd, pausing only long enough to account for occasional cheers and chants from the peasants crammed into the muddy streets.

“Shit. We shouldn’t be here.” Sir Etta kept the horses moving. The crowd was so tightly packed, we’d never regain momentum if we stopped. Weary, dirt-smudged faces glared up at us as we barged through. It was cold, and blustery, but the stench of too many unwashed bodies created a dense fog. I looked over the caps and hoods of the crowd and found the main attraction: a man on the temple steps, raising his fist as he shouted over the crowd.

“Our streets are impassable and filthy! Our homes are in disrepair! We’re reduced to burning our tables and chairs to keep warm!—but does the king hear us? Does he send the building materials or firewood our taxes pay for?”

“NO!” said the crowd.

“The king’s forest stands just beyond the city limits, untouched by the axe, full of game—but are we permitted to hunt or chop wood, lest it disrupt his sport?”

“NO!”

“This is treason!” I hissed to Sir Etta.

She reached back to smack me. “Shut up and keep moving.” We were both anxious to be free of the pressing crowd, which was starting to buzz like an angry beehive. It wasn’t a mob, but it had all the makings of one.

The man on the temple steps only continued to stir them up with his ranting. The grain mill was in a state of near collapse, but did the increase in taxes for people to use it go toward the repairs? (NO.) The noble children went to class and had tutors, but were our children allowed the same opportunities to better themselves? (NO.)

“What happens to any man or woman caught teaching their fellow countrymen to read?” the man on the temple stamps shouted.

“TO THE BARN!” replied the crowd.

“What happens to our children if they’re discovered in classrooms?”

“TO THE BARN!”

“What happens to our children if we fall behind on the ever-rising taxes?”

“TO THE BARN!”

We were nearly free of the crowd.

“Wait!” I cried.

Sir Etta looked back without slowing.

“These people—they’re not slaves!”

“Of course not,” she spat.

“But some of their children go to the barn?”

“Not willingly.”

“But that means they’re not born slaves?”

Sir Etta’s eyes widened, locked onto something behind me. A second later, I heard the first scream.

I looked back.

Men in armor, mounted on the backs of massive horses with cropped manes and foaming mouths, plunged into the sea of people clogging the street. The mounted soldiers brandished clubs and torches, swinging them down at random onto the heads and shoulders of people fleeing the iron-shod hooves of their warhorses. Screams of terror and pain spread like wildfire from mouth to mouth. The man on the temple steps was still shouting—but no one could hear him over the chaos of hooves and pounding boots, ringing mail and colliding bodies. One of the soldiers rode up the steps with a clatter of iron horseshoes against stone. The rabble-rouser dodged the club aiming for his head, only to be struck by a hoof and sent rolling, limp, down the steps into the surging mob below.

“GO!” Sir Etta screamed, driving her knees into her mare’s ribs. The mare took off. Roland bolted after, his eyes rolling with fear, barely in command of himself enough to weave around the people running this way to escape the king’s men.

Sir Etta veered down a side street, but Roland galloped on down the main road, blind to everything but his own terror, which infected me thoroughly. I kept my head down, expecting at any moment to feel the crack of a club against my skull. I was sure the fall from the horse would kill me.

But the screaming and ringing faded behind us, and soon Roland’s hooves were the only ones I could hear squelching on the wet ground. His mad dash had flung mud over his flanks and my back, but neither of us really noticed as he slowed to a trot and then a tired walk, foaming and blowing hard.

We’d outrun everyone else. The soldiers either hadn’t seen us or had been too busy kettling the mob to give chase. And I had no idea where Sir Etta was. After plodding another mile, I accepted the fact that she’d wisely left me to my fate. If I was stupid enough to flee in a straight line, that was hardly her problem.

I still had the practice swords in my belt.

I knew I looked ridiculous, riding out of the slums and into the market district. With no idea what to do next, I kept Roland on the path that would take us back to the palace. I wanted to get somewhere safe before the soldiers came charging back, but I didn’t know the city streets well enough to stray from the main road and take a more secretive route.

I passed through the market by the auction block and barn, and knew I was going the right way. Most of the stalls and shops were locked up, despite it being late morning and peak business hours. The few shoppers and vendors I saw hurried through sales, keeping their heads down as I rode by. The soldiers must have ridden through here, spooking them, and then used the twisting, tunnel-like side streets of the slums to circle the mob and attack from the other side.

The dirt road became flagstones became cobbles. Roland perked up, despite his exhaustion, recognizing the wealthy district immediately. He was reluctant to stop when I drew rein while passing by a familiar alley.

Roland’s saddle and my nice clothes were still hidden where Isaac had left them. Isaac’s peasant cloak and britches were back in the waterproof sack. I stuffed mine in as well, got dressed, and re-hid the disguises behind the firewood pile.

I flung Roland’s saddle over his back, tightened the girth strap just enough it wouldn’t slip off, and walked the poor beast the rest of the way. Every now and then his huge head drooped to rest on my shoulder, and I’d pat his whiskery nose.

Despite the excitement, I remembered Isaac’s instructions to go to the palace’s side gate. When I was near enough to see the roofs of the palace sticking up higher than the nobles’ houses, I turned down a parallel road, avoiding the guards at the front gate. When I’d gone far enough I was sure they wouldn’t spot me, I changed course again and walked all the way to the wall, then along it till I found the side gate—less ornate than the one in front, but no less sturdy.

Three men squatted around an upturned crate playing cards—two guards I didn’t recognize, and Isaac.

“Ah!” he said when he said me. He shot to his feet, upsetting a wine bottle that would have spilled all over their game had it not already been sucked dry. “How was your night on the town, Chaperone? I should tell the king you abandoned me in favor of better company in the brothels, but maybe I won’t, if you promise to invite me along next time.”

It was a weak excuse and a bad act, but the guards were too drunk on Isaac’s gift of wine to even focus on me properly. Isaac opened the gate and I gratefully led Roland through, feeling like I’d left a hundred-pound weight I’d been carrying outside the palace walls.

The moment the horse was safely inside, he tore his reins from my hand and trotted off in the direction of the stables.

“What’d you do to him?” Isaac asked.

“Should I chase him down?” I wasn’t sure my trembling knees were up for the job.

“Nah. Let the stable boy catch him. Let’s get you inside.”

“Bellamina—”

“The scullery girl has been helping Bellamina today, I promise. Come upstairs with me.”

We made it all the way to his tower without attracting attention. He pushed me into the bath and scrubbed me within an inch of consciousness. The lunch bell rang, summoning him, as he was helping me into some clean nightclothes.

I got into his bed—in the middle of the day!

“How’s your head?” Isaac pushed my hair out of my face.

“You’ll be late for the king,” I warned.

“I’m always a little late—I have to manage his expectations after all.”

I didn’t think that was true, but I answered his question anyway. “Still hurts a little.”

“A little?”

“Okay—a lot.”

“I’ll get something from the physician for you.”

“You mean the one who’s poisoning the king?”

Isaac lifted my hand, to press my knuckles to his lips for a kiss. “The very one.”


	16. Chapter 16

Isaac didn’t let me go down to the pantry the next morning. I mistook his reluctance to let me out of bed as concern for my head, but whatever potion the physician had sent up with him last night further reduced my headache to a mere annoyance. I assured him I was hale enough to knead dough.

“There’s little left to gain from being a pantler’s assistant,” he said, squeezing my bulked-up bicep. “I told Bellamina not to expect you.”

“Who will assist her?”

“Someone who’s not going to kill the king. You have work to do elsewhere.”

I licked honey from between my fingers. Isaac had split his cake with me—a rare kindness. “And what’s that?”

Isaac hefted the practice swords Sir Etta had sent home with me.

“I have to go back?” I exclaimed, not looking forward to another three-hour ride through the market, slums, and fields between here and the manor. Even with the relief the physician’s potion provided, I was stiff from yesterday’s ride; muscles I didn’t know existed smarted terribly.

“Not every day. She does have a manor to care for, you know—can’t be babysitting you all the time—no! Today, you’ll train with me.”

My breakfast became a cold lump in my belly. I tried to imagine what it would be like to swing a wooden sword at Isaac. I could still feel the welts from my first lesson with Sir Etta. I’d hit Isaac plenty of times the day we met—but since then, I’d come to know him. I had seen him at his most vulnerable, had held him, teased and tasted him. I didn’t want to hit him with a stick, to see his cherubic face contort with pain, and bruises bloom on his flesh.

He went ahead of me down the steps to the queen’s disused chambers. Together, we drew the curtains and made an open space in the middle of the room, pushing smaller pieces of furniture against the walls. A large, ornamental rug would serve as our field.

Isaac paced away and spun to face me, sword at the ready.

“Isaac—”

He darted in. His wooden blade bit my knuckles. I yelped and dropped my sword; he tapped my chest.

“Dead.”

I picked up my sword.

We began again.

Isaac was neither as fast nor as skilled as Sir Etta, but compared to a reluctant novice, the difference between them was irrelevant. He was certainly the kinder of the two, pulling his strikes at the last second so as not to bruise, and telling me where my defenses were weakest rather than exploiting them without mercy.

The morning sunlight crept slowly across the floor to touch a corner of the fireplace. Isaac neatly disarmed me one last time and declared the day’s lesson at an end. Sore, dripping sweat, and unable to catch my breath—I was loath to quit before I’d gotten past his guard even once.

“Who taught you?” I panted, clutching a stitch in my side.

His teasing cheer seemed forced and strained. “Maybe I’m a natural! Or maybe you’re just that bad.”

“Tell me—why on earth does the king’s whore need fighting lessons?”

He ran his thumb along the wooden edge of the sword. “I guess I might as well tell you. You’ll find out eventually, one way or another.”

He went to the fireplace and, with his sword, tore down the funeral shroud. The sheer black fabric flowed down off the portrait like oil, revealing a younger version of the king than the one I’d seen depicted in his own chambers. Next to him stood a blue-eyed young woman, a rare beauty with alabaster skin and honeyed curls. A boy of about five, already severe and brooding for one so young, held himself stiffly between his parents—here was Prince Bartholomew, about twenty years ago, I estimated. The king’s only son; his only heir. That’s what Isaac told me. But the queen held another child, a toddler, smiling and sweet, possessing a darker, more golden complexion than the other three subjects. His burnished head rested on the queen’s milk-white breast, expression sleepy and happy, in wild juxtaposition to the somberness of the crown prince and the king.

“The queen loved to travel,” Isaac said. “She’d been as far as our maps could take her. The palace is full of treasures she brought back from her adventures.” He looked from the portrait to me. “I am one of them.”

I had already known he’d been plucked from some warmer climate, but for the queen to parade him around so brazenly, including him in the portrait of the royal family, opting to hold him while her true son, the young prince, stood by with only his father’s heavy hand to weigh down his shoulder…

“Bart and I were practically raised together. I wasn’t treated like a slave. Whatever he got, I got. A pony. A sword. Lessons with both. Tutors—though I never did take to reading. The letters just wouldn’t go for me lie they would Bart, and unlike him, I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. Bart had to be perfect. He was the king’s—his heir, raised in his shadow and molded in his likeness. But I was the queen’s, only and entirely, and that made me her favorite. Bart was dreadfully jealous. I’d stolen his mother away. But she was protective of me. If the prince acted out, she sent him away, which only upset him further. I barely noticed. I didn’t mourn for my old life—the queen did everything to distract me from the memories of the home I left behind. I wanted for nothing. She took me with her on her adventures and lavished me with presents. As I got older, we spent more time abroad. An entire year once! By the time we returned to the palace, I’d grown a hand taller and my voice had changed. The king…noticed me.”

“Isaac.” I wanted to beg him to stop talking. I wanted to bundle him back up to his tower, wash away the sweat of today’s exercise, and pile him into bed, keep him busy so he couldn’t speak, make him forget whatever he was about to say. But I realized that what I wanted to do now was just another version of what the queen had done with him as a child.

“She could protect me from her son,” Isaac said. “She could not protect me from her king. She tried! She moved me out of the nursery and into the tower. She arranged another trip around the southern islands—I think she may have even intended to take me back to whatever shore she plucked me from. We made it all the way out of the harbor. And then her guards—the king’s men—threw her body overboard and turned the ship around.”

He took a shuddering breath, lifting his eyes to the portrait. “So you see, the queen’s daring to include me in the family portrait was prophetic, in a way. I am not just the king’s whore. I’m the prince consort.”

In the silence that followed, we both heard the faint ringing of the bell through the open doors to his tower.

* * *

I settled into a new and hateful routine. In the morning, Isaac and I sparred. My progress was slow. I was always just a little too timid. I was stronger than Isaac, and my reach was longer. But I woke up beside him every morning and forgot the punishment he’d administered the day before. He grew gradually less patient with me.

Every fourth day, we rode together to Sir Etta’s manor, where I was made to suffer for not training harder in the palace. Those were miserable days. We had to leave hours before sunup and be back before lunch. Isaac was cranky and tired. I was bad at riding horses. Signs appeared in the marketplace and slums, drawings of the man I’d seen and heard shouting treason on the temple steps. REWARD was written under his face.

“So he got away?” Isaac asked after I pointed out the posters and told him about the riot.

I said that he’d rolled out of sight in the chaos, whether dead or alive, I had no idea.

Isaac stared at each poster we rode by. There were a lot of them.

“How accurate is that drawing?”

“I didn’t get very close to him,” I admitted. “It was a big crowd.”

In the afternoons, I resumed my duties as a meal courier, memorizing the quickest routes around the palace and navigating the sometimes thorny hierarchy of palace staff. It was weeks before one of the other slaves condescended to introduce me to the passageways between the walls, making short work of getting around the palace. The passage to the king’s room was walled off; his paranoia showed him assassins creeping in every shadow, and any servant had to pass by his guards to enter his chambers.

About once a week, but never too predictably, Bellamina would give me a lunch try for the physician. The physician rarely had his food brought to his chambers, preferring to fend for himself, but on these days, there would always be a tray of sweetmeats or small cakes waiting on the table just inside his door. The physician barely acknowledged my presence more than to nod at the tray without pausing whatever it was he worked on. No matter the nature of the treats, they were always arranged on the same platter, an exquisite silver dish stamped with fruit designs around the rim, with one morsel always set infinitesimally apart from the others, nearest the carved apple.

“What is it you’re giving the king?” I asked Isaac one night as he was getting into bed. I didn’t dare ask the physician.

“It’s a slow-acting poison,” Isaac said. “The king’s too young to die suddenly without raising suspicions. To outward appearances, he’ll appear to gradually sicken and waste away, while his physician assures him he’ll recover any day.” Isaac snickered at the layers of dishonesty. “He’s eaten every poisoned bite right from my fingers. Even if the royal taster somehow gets to the tray before the king, the likelihood he’d take the exact piece is incredibly slim.”

“Very slow-acting,” I agreed. I’d been in the palace a few months, and the king looked and sounded no different than when I’d arrived. “Have you considered…?” I didn’t want to say it.

“Go on.”

“Have you considered that maybe the physician is deceiving you? That there is no poison?”

“Oh, there is,” Isaac assured me. “The king can’t show any weakness. But he’s tired more often. He sleeps like the dead, and eats less. And he—” Here, Isaac really started to giggle at his own wickedness. “He can barely get it up some days!”

While the king spent his afternoons struggling to maintain an erection and his evenings in dreamless slumber, I stayed awake late into the night, poring over books pilfered from the royal library. Isaac showed me the room: a space a little larger than a study, with a huge window for letting in sunlight, a fireplace as grand as the king’s own, and two walls of scrolls and books. Once inside, I was on my own. We could only sneak in at night, so I had to navigate by the light of a chamber stick. Isaac stretched out on the rug to soak up the warmth of the dying fire while I squinted at gilded spines and labels on scrolls, looking for anything history- or family-related. Unfortunately for me, most of the tomes fit that description.

I read volume after volume, scroll after scroll, of the nation’s history, how what was once a small village with few natural resources suffering regular raids turned the course of fate when the villagers offered to sell or trade their own people—unwanted criminals—instead of watching them be carried away. I didn’t understand how something so bloody and horrible could be described in such a boring manner. Worse were the family trees, which I dutifully attempted to memorize.

My schedule left little time for sleep and even less for love-making. Some nights, when I finally crawled into bed—hours after Isaac had pulled the blanket over his head—he would grumble and snuggle back against me. Usually, I threw an arm and a leg over him and fell asleep immediately. Sometimes, I let my hands explore the hairless slopes and hills of his body, till he was wide awake and panting, butting up against me. I learned to restrain myself till he was almost begging.

Even then, I could barely keep up with him. Given his way, he’d have us both finished in minutes, chasing pleasure like it was a fox and we were a couple of mongrel hounds. But there were nights I had the amour but not the energy, nights I only lay on my side and pulled his back to my chest, entering him slowly, holding myself deep inside and lazily enjoying the way his body warmed and clenched and shivered against me.

I think gentleness, in any form, surprised him. He was always so willing to dole it out on me, but as the receiver, he often fell into a state of quiet shock. The crass mask of indifference he wore outside of his room slipped away. He became younger and vulnerable, wanting to be held and kissed and talked softly to long after we’d both been spent. I still wasn’t good at talking at length; I usually just droned on about whatever I’d read that night, while he hmm’d and mm’d and occasionally interjected tidbits of gossip that got left out of the history books.

We passed an entire winter in this way, my safe and familiar duties as a courier slave sandwiched between sparring and studying, interrupted occasionally by poison deliveries to the king’s chambers and chilly rides to Sir Etta’s.

My wooden sword soon became a blunted practice blade as I improved. One day, sparring in the queen’s chambers, I felt as though someone else were controlling my body. Not just my sword arm, but my feet as well, dancing perfectly; my hips, swiveling always at the right moment; and my left arm, perfectly balancing my right without becoming a target.

I pressed Isaac, till his tongue peeked between his teeth and sweat broke out on his brow, plastering his curls to his forehead. Meanwhile, I still felt cool and well-oiled. A calm quiet settled behind my eyes. It was like he was moving in slow motion; I could read his every muscle twitch and eye flick, and know just where he was going to go. My sword was in position to parry before he’d even begun to strike. He retreated to the edge of the rug, and then across the room, till he ran out of floor and his back hit the wall. He planted his feet and snarled at me viciously. His ferocity only made me more assured in my looming victory. He abandoned all decorum, swinging wildly, punching with his free hand and kicking when our weapons locked together.

My sword, as if with a mind of its own, seemed to decide enough was enough. I pinned his blade to the wall, leaving his body open to attack.

“Fuck!” he panted. “Yield. I yield.”

I pried his fingers from the grip and threw both weapons down with a clatter. My knee drove up between his thighs, not to hurt him but enough to make him jump. I tore at the laces of his pants, freeing him, and he fell into my hand already half-hard. I spit into my palm and worked him without mercy. He ground down against my thigh between his legs and whimpered, begging more, more, and trying to turn around but unable to wrench himself from the wall. His hands tugged at my clothes, but I captured both his wrists and pinned them above his head, locked together beneath my free hand. He made an agonized sound, as if I were killing him, when all I continued to do was slide my fist up and down his length. He swelled in my hand, growing painfully hot. I ran my thumb across the head of his cock, smearing what dew beaded there. His head hung; he stopped fighting, falling into a rhythm of grinding and thrusting, trusting my other hand, still holding his wrists, to support most of his weight. I buried my nose in his sweat-damp curls and wished I could inhale him entirely, carry him around inside of me and never let anyone else touch him.

Then his cock twitched and he moaned again, spilling into my hand. I stroked him a few more times, smearing him with his own seed, till he danced with misery. I finally released his wrists and he collapsed against me. We both went down and lay there, gasping. After several minutes’ languishing, he turned to look at me.

“We have to get you a better teacher,” he said.


	17. Chapter 17

The bell rang before either of us was ready. Isaac rushed off to make himself look and smell presentable enough for the king’s company, but I only had time to change into mostly-clean work garb before tripping down to the kitchens to grab the first lunch tray of the day.

A round, clean-shaven man with a neat ponytail and a very pink face grabbed my arm on my way to the pantry. He was one of the palace slaves, but better dressed and higher in rank. As the head of the serving staff, he spent more time in the king’s company than any of us, overseeing meals for the royal family.

He and I had very little to do with each other. But now he looked me up and down and proclaimed, “You’ll do!”

“Sorry, my lord?” I stuttered out of habit. He had an air of congenial authority about him that sent me scrambling for the safety of old habits.

But his pink face grew pinker. “Don’t call me that! Are you trying to get me whipped, boy? I’m Jon, for fate’s sake.”

My hands flew to my mouth.

“One of my serving boys is sick. Shitting all over himself,” Jon said unhelpfully. This information did nothing to explain why he still held onto my arm.

“I’m very sorry—” I began, but a woman popped up behind him, bundle of white fabric in her arms. Between the two of them, they managed to wrestle me into a fresh tunic. When my head popped out the top, I recognized the seamstress.

“There, see? Told you he’d be a neat fit,” she said to Jon.

He rubbed his big chin and nodded. “Aye. Very neat. You’d think this uniform was cut for him personally.”

The seamstress shot me a wink before speeding out of the kitchens.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Can you pour wine, boy?”

“What—into a cup?”

“Don’t get smart with me now.”

The kitchen was a mad bustle of slaves in matching white tunics just like mine, piling steaming dishes of food onto several gilded push trolleys. Jon took me to one such cart groaning beneath the weight of four pitchers.

“We water the wine,” he said, producing a very fine goblet encrusted with crystals, the stem carved in the likeness of a coiling sea monster. “The royal orchards couldn’t keep up with the king if we didn’t. Now, as the wine-bearer, you must be quick. When a cup needs refilling, its owner will pass their hand over it, like this.” He showed me how. “When you pour, you only fill to here.” He showed me where.

My knees became more and more like two bags of jelly as I realized what lion’s den he intended to send me into. I frantically reminded myself to pay attention lest I miss anything. I knew from the seamstress’s wink I was being pushed around like an experiment or a pawn. My duties as a courier delivering meals to cranky guards and catty servants seemed tame compared to what lay before me.

And then the servers were pushing the trolleys into line. To my horror, I was at the head of the train—the first round of wine came before any course. The server behind me gave me a nudge when it was time to move. I wished I had time to thank them.

The opulence and light of the dining room dazzled me after the dim kitchens and hallways that came before. A small band of musicians played cheerfully—but quietly—in one corner, their lutes and flutes never rising above the volume of conversation at the table. Rich tapestries hung between the windows. A fire roared in the hearth opposite the entrance. Eight people sat around an ornately carved table, chattering away, occasionally daring to laugh, but always stealing glances at the man seated at the head of the table—the king who, with a mere quirk of his mouth or twitch of a brow could steer the atmosphere of the entire room.

My hands were sweating. I was tempted to throw myself down in prostration, but as a server, my job was to not exist at all, not even respectfully. The king never glanced at me as I parked the trolley against the wall and lifted a pitcher. As far as he was concerned, the wine poured itself out of thin air into his goblet, while my heart pounded against my ribs, mere inches from his ear. I suffered nightmarish visions of sweating through my white tunic or spilling a pitcher of wine across his lap.

Then, quite suddenly, his goblet was full. I took a step back.

The king’s taster stepped forward. The wine was declared unpoisoned and fit for royal consumption, and I was free to repeat the harrowing ordeal of filling seven other goblets belonging to seven other powerful men and women who could order me whipped or executed with a flick of their jeweled fingers.

By the time I reached the eighth cup—not a streamlined procedure, as I had to keep darting around the table to serve in order of importance rather than by seating arrangement—the taster was already sampling the first course, a delicate onion broth. When he didn’t drop dead after the first slurp, the soup girl followed in my footsteps, going from king to crown prince to the foreign guest on the king’s other side, and on down the line of advisors and regents. I didn’t envy her task, the soup ladle was much drippier than the pitcher; but I did admire her skill. The tablecloth was still spotless when she’d reached the last regent, and the king was already gesturing for more wine.

I hastened to oblige.

The second round was as painful as the first. I dared not let myself grow comfortable for fear of sloshing. After living and working in the palace for months, this was my first time serving the king directly—indeed, my first time even being in his immediate vicinity (not counting the time I hid under his bed).

He was slightly less handsome than in his portraits, but well put together, with a jutting brow and nose propped up by high cheekbones. His black hair was long and shining; the gray streaks only served to make him appear wise. He was heavy, but not so fat it softened his edges. I’m not sure if I expected someone more divine, or dastardly, or otherwise remarkable in any way. I stole glimpses of his lined face, hoping for some tell, some sign of the slow-acting poison taking affect, and—there! Pouchy skin beneath the eyes. Cosmetics concealed what was surely purplish bruising. It was expertly hidden; I doubted anyone but me noticed.

My mind was so abuzz with terror at the position and company in which I’d been thrust, I was barely able to follow along with the conversation between the king and his foreign guest. But I settled into my routine of refilling goblets and keeping a watchful eyes on the hands that passed over them, and soon caught snatches and phrases—“trade routes,” “navy,” and “expanding.”

There was one face I didn’t dare look at for more than a second at a time. Isaac sat between the king and the crown prince. He was still on his first cup of wine. The soup girl removed his onion broth untouched, and his plate of lamb and vegetables cooled before him, silverware resting clean and shiny on his folded napkin. He gaped at me in open horror. Anyone watching him would recognize immediately that he was watching me. His face was still colored from our exertion that morning. Less than an hour ago, I’d pinned him to the wall and took him apart. Now, I leaned carefully between his chair and the crown prince’s to refill Bart’s goblet.

Isaac’s obvious terror steeled something inside me. I had been tricked into this dining room, that was for sure, but I could tell by his face he knew nothing about whatever scheme it was that got me here. The physician was to blame for this, I was sure of it. The man didn’t like me. I didn’t believe it was a personal grudge. His faith in our mad plan was rocky at best, and, as the supplier of the poison, he had the most to lose should we fail. He slipped the original wine-bearer something to render the poor boy incontinent and then planted the seamstress in the kitchens with a server’s tunic already tailored to fit me perfectly.

This was a test, and I intended to prove myself—and Isaac’s ridiculous plan—by passing it.

Ignoring the ever-increasing likelihood that Isaac would piss himself before dessert, I continued to serve wine without err or flourish, keeping my ear turned always toward the king and his guest.

The foreigner was some kind of ambassador from a nation east of here. The mountains in that kingdom were rich with silver ore, compared to the king’s own mines—mostly copper, with only a little gold, already exhausted. This foreign nation was so rife with silver, they weren’t able to mine it fast enough to keep up with demand.

They needed manpower.

Which the king of a tiny slave nation could provide.

“I’m worried about the quality of your stock,” the ambassador wheedled. His shrewd, ferret eyes latched onto the slim girl serving dessert. “They seem a bit delicate for the mines.”

“My servants lead admittedly soft lives here in the palace,” the king said easily. “For the job you describe, we would provide bodies of sterner stuff.”

The ambassador looked to the king expectantly.

“Stand up, Isaac,” the king said.

Isaac was still staring at me. I allowed my eyes to flick meaningfully from his face to the king.

“Isaac,” the king said, an edge creeping into his voice. The friendly background chatter from the regents farther down the table petered out. The band played on.

Isaac started and looked around. “What?” Next to him, Prince Bartholomew smirked into his wine.

The king beckoned him. Isaac rose from his chair and went to stand at the head of the table, stiff and wary. I doubted he’d been following along with the conversation half as well as I had, or he would not have looked so shocked when the king gestured to the ambassador and said, “Let him get a look at you.”

Isaac’s complexion became ashen.

I stood by the wine cart, clutching a pitcher so hard I thought the handle would snap off. Nobody waved for more wine; they were all too enraptured by the little drama playing out at the king’s end of the table.

Sensing the tension, the slip of a serving girl doled out the last of the pudding and scurried from the room.

Isaac stood trembling at the king’s side as the foreign ambassador looked him over, complimenting his form and asking the king alarmingly forward questions about his “performance.”

“He has a natural drive to work,” the king said. “I am always catching him among the slaves, assisting them with their tasks.”

“And you can get more like him?”

“As many as you may need.”

Isaac’s face whitened further. He’d finally put the pieces together. The king wasn’t talking about selling his own people, but expanding to the unprotected southern islands, harvesting the free people there and sending them to toil in the dangerous silver mines in the east.

“May I?” the ambassador asked.

The king nudged Isaac forward.

Isaac dug in his heels.

“Isaac,” the king warned, nudging a bit harder.

Isaac leaned back from the ambassador like the man smelled bad.

“Isaac—”

“No!” he cried.

The band stopped playing. The regents stopped breathing.

“Get out,” said the king.

The musicians set down their instruments and fled, regents and advisors hot on their heels. Soon, only the king, the ambassador, the crown prince, and Isaac remained—plus me. I stood statue-still against the wall, taking shallow breaths, and blending in with the tapestry. If the king turned his head, he’d be looking right at me.

He didn’t turn his head.

Rising, the king shoved Isaac down over the table. There Isaac remained, bent at the waist with his hands flat on the tablecloth, as the king ripped the belt from around Isaac’s waist and shoved his trousers down to his thighs.

I had the horrible realization that Isaac was going to get fucked right there in the dining room, and I didn’t even know who would do it. I trembled all over, wine shivering in the pitcher I still held, dreading what was about to occur, and unable to look away. Beneath the king, Isaac also trembled, dreading the same.

The king caught both ends of Isaac's belt in one fist and drew an arm back. The leather strap came down across Isaac’s ass with a crack that echoed in the dining hall, chased by Isaac’s startled yelp. The shock took his knees out from under him and he nearly fell, dragging the table cloth partway off and sending dirty dishes and platters of food crashing to the floor.

He crouched at the king’s feet like a cornered animal, peering up at the man’s stony expression in wide-eyed disbelief. Even the prince, still seated, looked surprised and slightly disturbed.

“You embarrassed me, Isaac.” The king flung the belt down, eliciting another flinch from Isaac. “Do not let it happen again.”

Then he gestured to the crown prince and his guest to follow him out of the room, saying, “A shame you had to see that.”

“Are they all so willful?” the ambassador wanted to know.

“They can be trained.”

The door shut with a bang behind the group.

I left the pitcher on the cart and rushed to Isaac. He was already on his feet, face bright red, fixing his belt around his waist again. I wanted to ask if he was hurt, but I knew he wasn’t. His humiliation gushed out of him like blood from a wound.

Slaves were already trickling awkwardly into the dining room to clear the table when Isaac met my eye briefly and then looked down at his own fist. I followed his gaze. His hand opened, briefly, revealing one of the king’s golden seals resting in the middle of his palm. Then he slipped the seal into his pocket and rushed out, head down and curls shielding his face. His disgraced half-run was so convincing, many of the slaves cast sympathetic glances at his back.

* * *

Back in his tower that evening, Isaac tried to make light of the blazing welt across his backside, twisting his body to admire it from every possible angle and drawing so much attention to himself and it that I knew it embarrassed him horribly. I wanted to apologize for witnessing what the king had done to him, but I knew any sincerity on my part would only humiliate him further. So I did the only thing I could. I laughed on cue and offered to stripe the other cheek so it matched.

We made it through the evening without any blooms of awkward silence, and when the lights were down and we were in bed, he was able to tuck himself beneath my chin and sniffle softly and I was able to hold him and pretend it was for no reason other than I wanted to be close to him like any other night.

I was almost asleep when I heard him whisper, “He was going to share me. He’s never done that before.”


	18. Chapter 18

I was eager to show off my increased skill with a sword to Sir Etta. I arrived at her manor in high spirits, and the moment her sword was in hand, I charged her. She rushed to parry me, giving me a grunt of—if not approval—then acknowledgement, certainly.

After my optimistic and promising start, everything fell apart rather quickly.

She picked up the pace, and soon I was retreating like I hadn’t since the first day. The well loomed behind me like it was mocking me. I couldn’t let her chase me around it again. I attempted a few feints, but she knocked those aside easily. In seconds, my sword was airborne, and her blade was pressed beneath my chin.

“Dead,” she said.

I couldn’t hide my scowl.

“What’s the problem?” she said.

“I beat Isaac the other day.” I said it like a confession.

“So you—what? Thought you’d come and have similar luck against me?”

“It wasn’t luck. I beat him.”

“You’ve improved, I’ll give you that,” she said. “You’re now about as skilled as a practiced eleven-year-old.”

“Eleven?” I cried.

She shrugged. “What did you expect?”

“But I beat Isaac!”

“So could most twelve-year-olds!”

“I don’t understand. He was so much better than me when we began…”

“He was trained as a child. Some of what you learned stays with you forever. But he didn’t keep it up.”

I threw down my sword and collapsed onto the packed ground. I was glad Isaac hadn’t come with me this morning to witness my defeat. Not because I was embarrassed (I’d grown out of embarrassment long ago) but because I didn’t want him to hear how Sir Etta talked about him. It wasn’t as if Isaac simply got bored of training when he turned thirteen. It—and almost everything else he enjoyed—had been taken from him.

“However,” said Sir Etta, standing over me so I had to squint against the sun to see her face, “you’re good enough to pass as a noble’s disappointing and neglected fourth or fifth son.”

I grumbled, disheartened.

She picked up both swords and headed back toward her forge. “Go wash up for dinner.”

I splashed my face with well water and headed inside to help Gemma with any last-minute preparations. I’d walked to the manor that morning, alone, without even the company of the palace horse, Roland. I was to spend the night in Sir Etta’s hospitality.

It was a feast day.

By nightfall, a dozen families crammed into the hall for singing, dancing, and stew made creamy with goat’s milk. Sir Etta returned from the forge late and presided over it all unsmilingly. There were no servants. Gemma, who’d prepared most of the food herself, propped her feet up and called loudly for a tankard of ale. It was delivered. Otherwise, everyone helped themselves. They were a musty, dusty lot in patched tunics and worn-out boots.

Despite my attempts to hang back and observe, I caused quite a stir, being unfamiliar, young, and unmarried. Everyone wanted a dance from me. I told them I didn’t know how. In the end, it didn’t matter. They were, every one of them, terrible dancers.

I drank too much and slept too little. I was a mess come morning, when I found myself sprawled beneath one of the long wooden tables. A few other men my age—and some who still acted my age—were similarly draped around the hall on benches or propped against the wall. Some groaned and searched for their boots; most slept on. Here and there, dogs curled against ribs or between legs for warmth. A heavy weight across my legs suggested I had my own loyal companion—till I looked down and found one of the goats lounging on me and eating my laces.

I wrinkled my nose and sat up, disturbing the goat. It trotted off, bleating indignantly, tail wagging.

I’d need a bath.

I made do with a rag and a pot of hot water. Gemma took pity on me and combed my hair, tying it back with the silk ribbon I’d brought along for the occasion. Goat-smell more or less scrubbed and combed out, I got dressed in the fine clothes I’d pilfered from the palace yesterday morning. Thanks to the seamstress, they fit perfectly, and I was soon turning this way and that, checking frogs and buckles, resplendent in the family colors of the eccentric duke on the coast with so many wives and children he couldn’t organize their names onto a single family tree.

“How do I look?” I asked Gemma.

“Hungover,” said someone from above.

Gemma and I both spun as Sir Etta descended the stairs to her quarters above the hall. She looked the same as always, despite being the last one to retire last night. I don’t think she drank more than a mug or two of ale over the course of the evening; caught up in the whirl of the feasting and merry-making where I wasn’t stuck bowing and serving stuck-up nobles, I’d lost count of my own drinks before midnight.

“But then, nobles are hungover most of the time,” Sir Etta conceded.

I grinned, groggy and miserable, then frowned when I saw the bundles of letters in the knight’s hand. I double-checked my breast pocket for my own missives, both bearing my supposed duke’s signature (forged by me), and sealed with the stolen signet ring reserved for correspondence between members of the royal family. The papers were secure.

I looked questioningly at the letters in Sir Etta’s hand.

“Until now,” she said, slapping the pages against her palm, “there was still time to back out.”

“Not without putting the physician in an uncomfortable position,” I said, then remembered Sir Etta’s thoughts on self-sacrifice and bit my tongue.

Sir Etta lifted a brow. “You never asked how I came to be in possession of a manor on the outskirts of the capital city.”

“Should I have?”

“You already know of the queen’s love for travel,” she charged on, beginning to pace now. “Sometimes for months at a time, yes? And once…for an entire year.”

None of this was news to me. I dared not say so.

“After her year-long visit to the island where I was born,” Sir Etta said, “she would often return to our village. Rare, I came to understand, for her to venture to the same place more than once. After her fifth visit in five years, she sailed back to the palace with a child in tow, and no real explanation for her king as to where she got him or why she kept him. I was also on that ship, as a girl of about thirteen. I didn’t want to leave home; I didn’t want to go to a cold, inland village in the north. Isaac was an exceptionally appealing five year old boy, but even cute boys get sticky. Queens do not get sticky. As Isaac’s half-sister, I was enlisted as his nurse. When the queen was got out of the way, I knew my time as governess to a young man, nearly grown, was at its end. I alone in the palace knew the queen’s secret. Soon the king’s men would question me. So I covered my face and I picked up a sword. I took what wouldn’t be missed from the queen’s chambers and I used the money to put a roof on those barns, and to build this hall.”

“You ran away?” I said. “You left him at the mercy of the king? The queen was dead—you were the closest thing to a mother he had!”

“I didn’t ask to be some bastard’s nurse—nor his mother.” I flinched back from her retort. She went on. “The queen tried to protect Isaac and she died. What hope did I have?”

I hung my head.

“I didn’t stop at raiding the queen’s jewelry chest,” Sir Etta said, and held out the bundle of parchment. “These are all the letters my father—Isaac’s father—wrote to the queen before she took Isaac and me back to the palace. If the king found them, we would surely have been killed like Isaac’s mother. Yes, I ran away. It’s why we are both still alive today.”

I took the bundle. The parchment was old and stiff, bound in twine. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, when what I meant was, Why are you trusting me with it?

“Isaac is the prince consort. His marriage to the king was one of desire. But the queen’s was a marriage of power and convenience. She was known for her adventurous spirit in her homeland; it was no great surprise that she eventually met her end at sea, and the king was able to hide his involvement. But as the daughter of another king of a far greater country than this one, any child of hers, bastard or otherwise, has a claim to the throne.”

# # #

I rode through the palace gates with my head high, dressed in fine clothes, seated on a borrowed horse I hoped no one would recognize.

I gave the first of my forged letters to the guard. The bundle of decaying parchment Sir Etta had given me burned a hole in my saddlebags. I dreaded being searched.

I need not have worried. The guard who checked me for weapons and poisons was, like many of the slaves, illiterate.

Within an hour, I was standing before the king in the dining room while he read the second forged letter.

“So your one of my cousin’s boys,” said the king.

I gave a little bow—my second or third since entering his presence—just to be safe. “Yes, Your Majesty. One of many, Your Majesty.”

Seated at the king’s side, Isaac tapped a finger on the tablecloth, warning me to reel it in.

“Giving your own master of sword a bit of trouble, are you?”

“I believe he described me as a ‘bumbling fool,’ Your Majesty. He hoped training with the royal master of sword would at least see me competent enough not to cut my own foot off and embarrass my father.” Sweat poured down my ribs, but the king only nodded and set the letter aside.

“Sit,” said the king, gesturing to the empty spot next to Prince Bartholomew.

I bowed deeply. “I am humbled, Your Majesty.”

* * *

So began the next chapter in the charade my life had become. Gone were the every-fourth-day lessons with Sir Etta; I was by now a passable horseman and a believable failure in need of emergency tutoring in swordsmanship. Gone were my duties as a meal courier; I now knew the palace halls, rooms, and passageways better than Isaac, and in fact had to pretend to ogle at the winding corridors and grand rooms when a servant gave me—or rather, the royal family member version of me—a tour and showed me to the chambers that would be mine for the duration of my stay.

I sparred every morning with Sir Braddock in the practice field, a ring of hard-packed dirt by the stables. He marveled not only at how far behind I was for my age, but how quickly I progressed. To preserve the reputation of my supposed duke’s master of sword—a man I’d never seen nor met, yet claimed to have given up on me—I resolved to progress more slowly.

I enjoyed sword-fighting. Hard work and good food in the palace ensured I had strength to match my height. A lifetime of being slapped or backhanded for the smallest trespass against my keeper instilled in me a strong desire to not get hit, an ability to read and predict people, and a long-simmering desire—bordering on lust—to be allowed to hit back.

My evenings, unspoiled by duties, were spent in the library. I could read books in the open now, lounging in one of the cushy chairs while I absorbed the country’s history, court etiquette, and procedures, as well as that of her neighbors. My bookishness only supported my pitiful swordsmanship. It was whispered among the regents, advisors, and other curious neighbors that I was over-educated and under-trained. As far as gossip went, I got off easy.

Cloistered to the kitchens, I had never worked alongside the chamber slaves tasked with tidying, laundry, and dressing members of the royal family, and nobody recognized me as the pantler’s assistant, nor the jumpy meal courier who spent his first week with a bruised cheek.

There was one great loss which left an ache in my breast.

I could no more sneak to Isaac’s tower. As a guest in the palace, I was assigned my own chambers, and a manservant to tend me. I was forced to let someone—my equal—dress and wash me as if I were his keeper. To refuse would have drawn suspicion.

At night, I lay in my huge bed and missed Isaac terribly.

To add to my melancholy, I found myself the crown prince’s latest object of interest. Having been, until my arrival, a young man living with only his father and his father’s consort for company, Prince Bartholomew latched onto me immediately, and yet exuded such smug superiority it was evident I—a lowly thirteenth or fourteenth natural son of the king’s distant cousin—should be lapping up any attention he condescended to give me, like a miserable dog licking its master’s boots.

Prince Bartholomew attended many of my lessons with Sir Braddock, often stepping in to teach me tricks and hints that left the royal master of sword rolling his eyes behind the crown prince’s back and me struggling to keep the disdain off my face.

Occasionally, the crown prince invited me to go riding with him with such insistence I feared refusing him would be akin to treason. But our journeys beyond the palace walls were not wasted. I further familiarized myself with the side streets and back alleys between the palace and the slums, even if most of the routes I memorized led to brothels.

The men and women we saw in such establishments were lovely, but any temptation I might have felt was soured by the occasional glimpse of a slave tattoo through sheer fabric or between gold bangles. I developed the habit of bringing along a scrap of parchment to distract me, and while the crown prince sought his entertainment, I made maps of the city, adding new streets and shops as I discovered them.

My unorthodox means of passing the time did not go unnoticed.

“You’re making us nervous with all your scribbling and doodling. We’d kindly appreciate it if you would go ahead and pay to fuck one of us.”

I hadn’t spoken a word to anyone all night, and had done a decent job of keeping my eyes to myself, when the young man addressing me leaned across the bar for a look at what I was working on. Hand-drawn maps were hardly incriminating. I let him look, and I used his momentary distraction to look at him.

Black eyes. Goose egg. And a nose broken on multiple occasions. The state of his face alone was startling. His loosely-draped clothing was so sheer I could just make out the almost-faded bruise in the shape of a hoof on his chest. I’m surprised the blow hadn’t killed him.

“Take me to your room, then,” I said.

He led me away from the common area, where patrons and brothel slaves mingled, drinking and warming up to each other. In all my nights out with the crown prince, I’d never made it past the bar. But now I followed this slight man—I couldn’t tell if he was younger than me, or just made up to look that way—into a cozy room, just big enough for the bed and washstand crammed inside. The walls were heavily draped. There were no windows.

My temporary companion opened the nightstand drawer and took out a vial of white powder. Before he could measure any into his palm, I asked, “What’s that?”

“Helps me relax.”

“Stop. Put it away.”

He paused with the vial hovering over one cupped hand. “You know it costs more if you want to hurt me.”

“You won’t need it. I promise.” I took out my quill and scrap of parchment again. “Is there anywhere I can work?”

He motioned to the floor.

The bar had been more comfortable, but I appreciated the quiet of a private chamber.

My companion sprawled on the bed and smirked down at me. “You know, I do need to get paid.”

“The prince will pay you,” I assured him. Assuming I was travelling on the duke’s allowance, Bartholomew had offered to cover my brothel tabs on multiple occasions. I thought he would be relieved his uptight southern-born cousin was finally loosening up. “Tell him I had a wonderful time. Tell him I gave you those bruises and he’ll probably pay you extra for your trouble.”

My companion looked thoughtful. Then he leaned over the edge of the bed and tapped a blank space on my map.

“There’s an alley here,” he said.

“No. That’s a row of homes without spaces between them.”

“A door.” He took my quill and made a few precise marks, little ticks that represented the doors of every home in the row. “This one.” He circled the fifth in the line. “It looks the same as those around it, but it’ll take you into an alley that connects to this road over here.” He drew a line.

My heart fluttered. “Thank you.”

He rolled onto his back in the middle of the bed, content to rest while I resumed working.

“Are there any more secret passages?” I asked.

“Tons,” he said.

I waited, quill poised over the parchment.

He laughed. “Don’t be greedy.”

“Maybe next time, then.”

“Next time,” he agreed, and then he fell asleep.

Hours later, the crown prince stumbled into the room and dropped a bag of coins on the pillow by the prostitute’s head.

Coming home late, I was forced to put an arm around Prince Bartholomew’s waist, lest he collapse on the stairs and I be blamed for his assassination. The crown prince’s chambers were in the same wing as the king’s and queen’s.

We passed Isaac in the dim corridor, no doubt on his way from the king’s bed to his own.

Thus far, Isaac and I had managed to avoid each other, sharing only the occasional glance in the dining hall, while I was passing as a noble. But at the sound of Prince Bartholomew’s drunken ranting, Isaac paused and looked at us both.

“There he is,” said Bart, leaning precariously away from me to better leer at Isaac, “the little savage.”

Isaac blinked.

“My father, the king,” said Bart, lest we forget, “is going to raze that little rat-infested village to the last little savage child, and—”

I dropped him.

It was a simple matter of letting go of his waist.

The crown prince collapsed like a slab of exceptionally well-dressed meat. His royal nose broke his fall, and blood gushed over the marble floor and rug.

I dared meet Isaac’s eye for the briefest of moments—he tried to hide his smile behind his curls as he slipped quietly into the queen’s chambers—before etiquette demanded I rush to prop the crown prince back up on his feet.

* * *

My glimpse of Isaac’s smile haunted me all the way back to my rooms. After my manservant dressed me for bed, I lay awake half the night squirming with loneliness.

When I could stand it no longer, I dressed in my work garb, dug the bundle of old letters from out of my mattress, and slipped into the servant’s passage running through the interior walls of my room. They took me as far as the queen’s chambers. The king’s fear of assassins sneaking through the walls had not motivated him to seal off the hidden entrance to his wife’s room; in the end, he’d been forced to kill her himself.

I ascended the steps to Isaac’s tower and knocked softly on the floor above my head.

The trapdoor swung open almost instantly. Isaac pulled me into an embrace and we tumbled onto the rug before the fireplace. He tugged my laces and I rucked up his nightshirt. We fucked, right there on the rug, and then we undressed and made love.

I sprawled atop him, never minding how sweaty we’d gotten, happy only to drift in a post-coital daze while he ran his fingers through my hair.

“You’re still technically a slave,” he said after a while.

I nuzzled his belly. “So are you.”

“Ha! No, a consort is not a slave.”

He didn’t elaborate.

“What’s your point?” I asked.

“What would you do—if you weren’t a slave?”

“First, I’d make sure no one else was a slave either,” I said. The answer seemed very easy and obvious, and I wondered why he was wasting energy on such simple inquiries instead of petting me and going to sleep.

“And then what?”

I lifted my head. “What do you mean, then what?”

“So all the slaves are un-enslaved. Then what happens? Would they all just…get jobs? Who would hire them? Where would the money come from? What about the niche slaves—brothel workers and miners? They only have one sellable skill. But what if they don’t want to fuck people or die in cave-ins anymore, even if they get paid? If all the slaves are stuck doing the same things they used to, has anything changed?”

I was tongue-tied. I was tired and didn’t know why he was asking me these things. I hadn’t had a moment alone with him in weeks, and already he was drilling me like this was a regular meeting to discuss simple treason.

“Well…,” I began. “I guess there’d have to be some kind of…education system…some kind of program…”

“Oh, yes. Government programs—lovely. Because any freed slave will definitely trust the crown to take care of them.”

“Apprenticeships, then.”

“Who’s going to apprentice a former slave?”

“Well—other former slaves, for starters.”

“Who’s got the time? They’ll be too busy trying to make their own ends meet. Why should they flood their own job market by training other people to compete with them?”

“The crown could sponsor masters of trade… Um, I suppose teaching could become its own profession…”

“The crown is paying these sponsorships? With what money?”

“Taxes.”

“And you think the nobles will be all right with that? Raising their taxes after taking all their slaves away?”

“Hang the bloody nobles! Fate damn them!”

Isaac laughed, squeezing my head to his chest. I snuggled into him, hand drifting down to find the crop of golden-brown hair between his legs, trailing thinly up his belly and down the insides of his thighs. The hairs were brand new and very short, prickly when I ran the pad of my thumb against the grain.

He wiggled, ticklish and laughing at my discovery. “Fantastic, isn’t it? The king hasn’t fucked me in weeks. I’m going to see how long I can let it grow before he realizes.”

Eating meals with the royal family, I’d noticed how the king’s appetite had fallen, and the sallow appearance that even cosmetics couldn’t disguise. I continued to stroke the bristly hairs. Isaac’s arousal bobbed and flagged. He propped himself up on his elbows to better watch my face.

“Unless you don’t like it either…” The uncertainty in his expression pierced me like an arrow. I was acutely aware of my power over him then. I could ask him to get rid of the hair, and he would. But I knew something would change between us if I did; something irreparable.

“It makes no difference to me.” I kissed the crease between his groin and thigh. “I like knowing you’re comfortable.”

He purred with delight and let his head roll back on his shoulders. “I’ll be comfortable next week. Right now I feel like a nettle!”

“What will become of you—after the king dies?”

He looked at me sharply. “I guess that’s up to the new king.”

“The next king would inherit you with the throne?” I asked in horror.

“Well, if I were someone more important, my fate might be more secure. But without any powerful family members to go to war over my mistreatment…” His voice petered out meaningfully.

“What if you became king?”

“Ha!” said Isaac. “Now I know you’re fucking with me. Did Bart put these questions in your head? He’s trying to get under my skin. Ignore him.”

I showed him the letters Sir Etta had given me.

He frowned at the handwriting but didn’t pretend to read any of it. “What’s all this?”

“Letters from your father to your mother. Sir Etta stole them from the queen’s chambers so the king wouldn’t find them.”

“Why would the queen have my mother’s letters? I never even knew my mother.”

“Isaac,” I said, “the queen was your mother. You’re her natural son.”

His hands began to shake. “No.”

“You’re next in line for the throne after Bart.”

“If I’m the queen’s bastard, why didn’t she ever say so?”

“The king probably would have sent you away—or worse. Your very existence is a threat. Bart is older than you, but he’s the only child the king and queen had together—and the king doesn’t have any bastards, due to a well-known lack of mistresses.”

Isaac’s brow furrowed. He looked very calm and interested.

So you can imagine my surprise when he flung the letters into the fireplace.

“Isaac!” I cried, but he snatched the poker before I could and nudged the parchment deeper into the coals. The aged, dry parchment surrendered readily to the flame.

“I don’t ever want to be king.”

I looked hopelessly between the ashes and him. “Well, it would have been a nice backup plan, don’t you think?”

“It never would have worked. The guards would never take me seriously. The damned scullery girl can’t even look at me without blushing. They’ve all seen me… they’ve seen what the king does to me.”

“So you’ll get new guards!”

“It would never work! The queen hid her pregnancy. She never claimed me. Those letters can be discredited as the mad scribblings of some love-struck island savage.” His voice broke on the horrible word. He held his head in his hands.

“Oh, Isaac,” I said, and could do nothing but hold him, for all the good it did anyone.


	19. Chapter 19

Warmer weather was upon us, bringing green buds to the trees lining the nobles’ streets and mud to the slums. Increased taxes saw more children taken to the barn as tithe to the crown, which in turn saw more riots, and more riots saw more beheadings. Prince Bartholomew was in paradise. He took to carrying a whip on the hip opposite his sword.

Weakened by the physician’s slow poison, the father could do nothing to rein in the son. Still the crown prince’s constant companion, I had even less power over him, and could only in the most discreet ways protect the slaves and peasants that found themselves the object of his gleeful ire. By spilling my own wine on myself, I might give a slave girl a chance to flee under the guise of fetching another pitcher; by nudging my horse just right, I might bump a peasant out of the way of Bart’s whip.

The already low opinion of the crown sank further.

I often caught Bart’s subtle smirks when his father, weakened by illness, stumbled.

Isaac became more of a nurse than a consort, sitting constantly by the king’s side, mopping sweat from his brow and bringing him watered wine. The king barely had strength to attend meals and meetings with his regents and advisors. Alone with Isaac, he was sedate, even looking to Isaac for some comfort. And always, Isaac was there for him, with a cool hand on his cheek, urging him to eat just one bite.

The crown prince became so obsessed with his impending kinghood, growing so bold as to begin conversations with, “When I am king…” I was nervous he might creep into the king’s chambers and hasten his ascent to the throne on his own, upending our own plans for treason. Would he spear his father’s head atop the walls alongside his other victims’?

I brought my concerns to Bellamina in the privacy of her pantry, and she in turn baked messages into rolls for the seamstress and the physician, wondering if we should act.

It is too soon, came the physician’s reply. The king’s death must appear natural.

The tourney will distract the prince, promised the seamstress.

Indeed, the tourney was the only subject enticing enough to draw Bart away from his “When I am king” monologues: a month-long festival of jousting, sword-fighting, and melees set to kick off on the first day of summer, travel around the kingdom, and circle back to the palace for the grand championship. Every country knight would be in attendance, with some following the tourney cross-country, seeking their fortune.

The king’s personal stewards were a storm of panicked preparations guided by the physician. The king was too weak to make the journey, but he’d never missed it before. The physician pleaded with him to save his strength for the championship in a month. But his majesty wouldn’t hear it.

I snuck out to Sir Etta’s manor a week before the royal family and accompanying staff were set to depart. I found her hall in a similar state of chaos. Wagons stood ready, burdened with canvas-covered supplies, and the knight herself packing her armor in crates of straw.

Gemma’s son stood by, smelling of goats, holding Sir Etta’s sword, sheath, and belt with a look of stunned awe on his dirt-smudged face.

“I’m her squire,” the boy squeaked at me when I rode up.

“My page,” Sir Etta corrected, and clocked the boy gently. “Not my squire.”

He sulked.

“Who is your squire then?” I asked.

“Haven’t got one.” She sniffed.

“Surely one of the farmers—”

“They’re farming.” She banged the lid down on her crate.

Maybe it was the warmer weather, the wildflowers along the roads, or the lively scent of hay and horse dung, but some springtime foolishness seized me then, and I said, “I could squire for you.”

“Draw your sword,” she said, and had hers in hand before I’d dismounted.

Sir Etta charged. My blunted practice blade met her sharpened steel in a last-second parry. We spun away. She attacked again. I deflected. She feinted. I called her bluff, knocked her strike off course, and very nearly got a hit on her leg.

She returned her blade to her page.

“You could squire for me,” she said.

* * *

The king’s cousin’s thirteenth or fourteenth natural son had served his purpose. I thanked the king and Sir Braddock, and dined with them my last night in the palace. I rode out of the gates in the morning, returned the plow horse I’d borrowed all those months ago to its farm, and rejoined Sir Etta at her manor. By all appearances, I was now a young man of middling birth, an appropriate rank for a country knight’s squire.

We arrived at the location of the first tourney a few days before the royal family and knights of higher status. The first leg of the festival was to take place outside a little village a day’s ride from the king’s city. The whole way, I boggled at lakes and rivers. Till now, I’d seen only wells and ditches. Far to the east, the land rose up into pale-gray peaks like dog’s teeth, and I knew these ridges must be mountains, which I’d only read about in geography texts and traced on maps.

We were part of a large crew tasked with assembling the stands in advance. Sir Etta barely hid her annoyance at being forced to erect the very stadiums in which she’d compete, but I couldn’t get enough of this new world, barely a stone’s throw from my own.

Children poured out of the nearby village, swarming the knights and squires, begging to be made into pages. They gave us ribbons and bunches of wildflowers and piled, shrieking with glee, onto the backs of annoyed warhorses. Eventually, their parents, grateful for the excuse to poke their noses into our business, would come and fetch them, catching us up in long conversations that distracted us from our work.

Some baron lived in a castle atop a nearby hill. On clear days, we could just see his towers on the horizon. The king’s caravan rode by on the third day as we worked; I kept my head down as Prince Bartholomew trotted by on his stallion, but allowed myself a peek when I heard the pattering fall of Cashmere’s smaller hooves.

I thought Isaac might overlook me. I wore nothing to stand out. But his blue eyes alit on me instantly.

Exhaustion painted bruises beneath his eyes, but he smiled when he saw me, before riding on in the wake of the king’s carriage.

* * *

The morning of the first tournament dawned foggy and cool. I helped Sir Etta into her armor while her page dressed her horse and braided and bobbed its tail.

My understanding of jousting was limited to tapestries and Prince Bartholomew’s endless stories about himself. No still image nor drunken tale could prepare me for the thunder of stamping feet in the crowds, the thick aroma of meat cooked on sticks, and the riot of colorful banners. Sir Etta’s own crest was a brightly-colored bird against a field of bursting pink flowers—both species found only on the island where she was born, she told me.

The stands groaned beneath the weight of commoners and nobles alike. My eyes found Isaac in the king’s box, dressed more elegantly than I’d ever seen him. His confection of silks and lace complimented the king’s more reserved fashion sense, while also drawing attention away from the sweat beading on the king’s bloodless face, despite the cool morning.

Trumpets blared. A great cheer rose up from the already-clamoring spectators. I walked Sir Etta’s horse onto the playing field—a huge dirt oval with a length of fence running down the center.

“Lance!” called Sir Etta.

Our page could barely lift the lance from the pile. He surrendered it to me with a jealous scowl; I passed it up to Sir Etta with ease. She accepted it without ever actually taking her eyes off her opponent—a bigger knight, on a bigger horse, both mount and rider in shinier armor than her calico concoction.

I asked if she knew the other knight’s name and she said it didn’t matter.

The flag snapped up to signal the start of the joust.

“HAH!” I screamed, and slapped Sir Etta’s horse. It surged forward, a wall of flaring nostrils and muscle, Sir Etta atop its back, lance perfectly vertical, now tilting downward into position. The ground trembled beneath eight pounding hooves. The challenging knight bore down on Sir Etta like a storm front. My blood sang. I covered my eyes when their lances struck home. A rogue splinter cut my cheek. Beside me, our page was screaming—little boy shrieks that could have meant anything.

I couldn’t look!

I looked.

One knight rolled around in the dust like an overturned turtle.

Sir Etta, still ahorse, circled the end of the fence and came charging back to where I waited.

* * *

Over the course of the festival, Sir Etta became a fan favorite. The only woman in the top three jousters, she drew a crowd all her own—other women mostly. Little girls flocked around her. I was never sure if it bothered her or not, to be recognized in this way, singled out almost. Her tanned, freckled face, as ever, gave nothing away. Flowers piled on her shoulders and horse like snow, flung by the watchers in the stands. She took her meals in whatever hall was hosting the king that week, while her page and I tended her horses and cleaned her armor and tack. When our duties were seen to, we ate around campfires with the other squires.

There was no one to cook for those of us outside the halls. Some nights we ate venison; more often it was a bit of hare or pheasant mixed in with whatever half-rotted vegetables could be tossed into a stew. Once, one of the more feral squires came back from his trek through a swamp with a round, furry animal slung over his shoulder.

While the animal’s body roasted, he cut off the flat, fleshy tail and threw it on the coals. The hairless skin blackened and blistered. When he removed the tail from the heat, it split open like a baked potato, revealing a slurry of whitish fat and little else.

He dipped a heel of bread into the fat and stuck it in the faces of those nearest him. They all drew back with shocked cries. When his arm swung toward me, I snatched the glistening, fat-soaked heel and stuffed it into my mouth.

It was delicious.

I spent my nights on the ground, sleeping three to a tent with Etta and her page. Though the smallest of the three of us, the page had the sharpest elbows. Etta always stuck me in the middle, as a buffer. If I so much as rose to use the latrine, she glared at me—a silent warning not to go looking for Isaac.

A warning which I reluctantly heeded. At least at first.

The northern leg of the journey took us to a castle large enough to host the tourney within its stone walls. The structure was ancient—older than the kingdom itself, if my history lessons informed me correctly—and going to ruin, except for a single wing fortified against the seasons to house the royal family once a year during the tourney.

We had been weeks on the road by now, and even a drafty, drippy room seemed preferable to pitching our tents.

Sir Etta slept soundly, exhausted by the day’s competitions, and our page dozed off where he’d fallen, in the way of boys and puppies. I stared at the ceiling, my vision flickering with the guttering candle, listening to the whispers and footsteps in the corridor.

A shadow stole into our room.

I held myself perfectly still. A moment later, a body, soft and warm, slid in beside me. He smelled of perfume and wine.

“Isaac,” I said, fighting a groan of need and pleasure. My travelling companions were just paces away. “What are you doing here?”

“Going mad without you.” He kissed a sloppy trail from my chest to my throat.

“Are you drunk?” I hissed.

Instead of answering, his lips found mine, and he swung a leg over me, trapping our hardened cocks between our bodies.

“Fuck—we’re not alone, you idiot.” My fingers dug into his sides. He ground against me, tormenting us both.

“You make a good squire,” he said, nibbling my throat. “When I’m watching you, I get so hard I can’t sit still. Whenever the king notices, he touches me. It’s humiliating. But I don’t care. I keep my eyes on you and I come in front of everybody.”

Isaac’s hands were wandering, but he may as well have dumped a bucket of cold water over me.

“I hate that he tortures you,” I said softly.

Isaac sat upright, weight settling lower on my body. “He never—”

“I saw.” I’d hardly gone a day without thinking about it since. “And if he’s not—leaving you tied up with metal hooks in your ass he’s—humiliating you—”

“The king is a terrible person,” Isaac agreed, “and I have no love for him. He’s a murderer and a slaver. But he has never tortured me.”

“How can you say that like you believe it?”

“How can I convince you it’s the truth?” He ran a finger over my belly, then stood abruptly. “Come with me.”

Several minutes later, I waited in a dark alcove while Isaac slipped into to his room in the wing reserved for the royal family. When he returned, he carried a lit chamber stick and a satchel over one shoulder; its weighty contents clanked softly.

The candlelight flooded my alcove, and he nodded at me to follow him.

“What’s in the bag?”

“You’ll see.”

“Where are we going?” I whispered as we crept down dank corridor after dank corridor, moving steadily away from the occupied rooms and the royal family’s wing. “The stables?”

“Ha! No,” Isaac scoffed, tugging me along. He carried my blanket and I carried my bedroll. “The stables are better guarded than the king right now! Some knights will sabotage their competitor’s horse, given half a chance—we’d definitely get caught sneaking into the stables.”

“Where, then?”

“I said, you’ll see.”

* * *

The dungeon.

“Isaac!” I said, pulling my hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

He draped himself in rusty chains and laughed, drunk and loud.

I found a dry spot on the stone floor and spread the bedroll out. I pulled him down onto my lap and slid both hands under his tunic.

“No,” he slurred, pushing my hands back down his body. “Not yet.”

I kissed him urgently. I slipped past his clumsy defenses and stroked him, squeezing, and then seeking, my fingertips pressing up against his ass, probing and threatening but never entering.

“Oh,” he said, and threw his head back, grounding down against my hand. “Oh. Fuck.”

I continued to rub and massage his ass, wondering where in his clothes he’d stashed the vial of oil.

“No, wait! You tricked me!” He flailed off my lap. His satchel slipped from his shoulder and landed with an ominous thud.

“For fate’s sake, what is that?”

“Oh—lots of exciting things,” said Isaac, and turned the satchel upside down, spilling its contents across my bedroll. An assortment of metal objects clattered out, looking like something that belonged in the tack room rather than a bedroom. Mixed amongst the bits and bobs were lengths of ribbon and silky rope.

My heart beat faster; I struggled to control my breathing.

Isaac selected an innocent-enough looking ribbon from the pile and trailed it over my thigh, winding it loosely around my cock and then pulling it taut. I hissed through my teeth.

“Put your hands in front of you like this,” said Isaac, and crossed his wrists over his chest.

What else could I do?

I was conditioned to obey.


	20. Chapter 20

I knelt on the thick padding of the bedroll and tried to control my breathing. My wrists were bound in the softest silk—a slippery material that tightened like wet rope when I tested the knot. Extra material trailed away from the knot like a leash, to pool between my knees. I hadn’t been restrained like this since the first time Isaac left me alone in his tower. I’d panicked then. I was on the verge of panicking now.

Isaac reclined on the other end of my bedroll and watched me. His eyes—normally bright blue—were very dark in the candlelight. The rest of him was gold. I could not decide if he was more or less drunk than I initially estimated. He extended one leg; his foot slipped between my knees. His toes brushed my balls and I jumped, rising to my full kneeling height.

“Nervous?” said Isaac.

“What exactly are you doing to me?”

“Do you not like it?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Tell me to stop.”

“No.”

He grinned like a cat.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Maybe I just like when you don’t do what I say.” He picked up a thin black rod, flexible with a grip at one end and a fanned tip. A crop.

I shrank from him. His foot was still beneath me. “Please don’t hit me with that.”

“I’m not going to hit you with anything. I’m just going to touch you.” He flicked the crop toward me. I flinched back, but the tress drew up short an inch from my chest. “You only say please when you want something,” he said, deadly serious. “Not when you don’t.”

“What do I say when I don’t, then?” I licked my dry lips. “Or am I supposed to just keep quiet?”

A troubled expression flickered across his face. “If you don’t want something, you say, ‘Stop.’”

I stole a glance at his hands. They were steady enough, despite how drunk he might have been.

Then the tress brushed my nipple and I shivered. My soul withdrew into a hard, impenetrable kernel, reflexively sealing itself off from the rest of me. Isaac’s foot brushed against my balls again, sending jolts of sensation firing through me. My hips bucked and I whimpered, unsure what my body was doing. My legs weren’t bound; I kept telling myself that, but they refused to straighten and carry me out of there.

The tress trailed across my chest and up to my neck, dipping into the hollow of my throat and the wells of my collarbone like a painter’s brush. Isaac’s expression never changed. My wrists may have been bound but my fingers were free; I could grab the crop and yank it right out of his hands, if I only had the courage.

He may as well have read my thoughts. Lowering the crop, he said, “Put your hands behind your head.”

I barely hesitated.

“Keep them there.”

He blindfolded me. Like the cloth around my wrists, the blindfold was very soft and clean-smelling. He put his arms around me to tie it behind my head, careful not to rip out any of my hair. I leaned into him, drawn into his warmth.

His heart was racing. I could feel it pounding when I pressed my chest to his. When he’d finished tying the blindfold, he wrapped his arms around me, embracing me with the full strength of his arms, his hands splaying on my back, clutching me. I kept my own arms lifted, hands behind my head. He held me, and it was then I knew it was still him, it was still Isaac. His breath smelled like the watered wine the royal family drank as he bit the tender skin of my throat, but his voice was a familiar comfort when he said, “I’m serious. Just tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”

I affected a jerk of a nod so he’d know I understood.

He pulled away before I was ready. I leaned after him, but the awkward angle forced me to choose between falling on my face or catching myself with my hands after he told me to keep them behind my head.

I straightened.

And waited.

Blindfolded, the air in the dungeon felt closer than it had been—cooler and damper, smelling very stale. I could hear every drip, every mouse that scurried in the other cells. My skin prickled. Goosebumps pimpled over every inch of me; my nipples grew so hard they ached. I couldn’t hear Isaac, not even his breathing. My ears strained for voice or movement. I tested my bonds again, but the silk held. I wondered if I could undo the knot with my teeth, but kept my hands behind my head like Isaac said. Some dark corner of my mind convinced the rest of my body that something awful would happen to me if I changed position. My legs locked. They may as well have been chained. My muscles quivered. It wasn’t that cold, but soon I was shivering so hard I might as well have been kneeling naked in a blizzard.

When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I called, “Isaac!” My voice was a croak, breaking out of me louder and more frightened than I’d meant to let it sound, like my words were making a run for it, leaving the rest of me behind to my fate.

“I’m here,” he answered instantly. “I never left.”

I sobbed once—violently—and regained some control of myself.

“You’re allowed to cry,” Isaac said.

And I did, my chest heaving painfully, tears soaking into the blindfold. My lips pulled back and I took shuddering breaths through my teeth. I must have looked awful. Isaac didn’t say anything. I bent till my forehead and elbows touched the bedroll and then I caught my breath. I didn’t know if I was “allowed” to bend over and rest my head, but I thought I’d faint if I tried to kneel up again.

Isaac ran a hand through my hair. I couldn’t believe how much better it made me feel.

“I didn’t expect you to be this scared.”

“I’m sorry,” I said into the blanket. His hands combed repeatedly, fingernails scratching my scalp. The more he touched me, the less I shivered.

“Maybe I made a mistake. I am a little drunk. This was supposed to be fun.”

He kept petting me. I stopped shivering entirely. I kept my bound hands behind my head. I still didn’t trust my legs. Isaac’s hand moved from my head to my back, rubbing flat over the tense muscles in long sweeps like he was smoothing fabric. My spine felt insubstantial, drooping like a limp clothesline between my lowered shoulders and my lifted hips.

“Are you having fun?”

I didn’t know what I was having.

Isaac’s hand withdrew. A tiny sound escaped my throat and I turned my face in the direction I’d heard his voice, but he let me sit untouched in silence again. Some of the fear crept back in, but I was nowhere near panicking this time. I knew he was there. I couldn’t hear or see him, and the scent of the bedroll my face mashed into overpowered any scent of his, but I knew he was still with me. I knew, because I knew him.

The crop came again, a feather-light touch running up the inside of my thigh. I hissed and my muscles clenched, but I didn’t flinch, not truly.

“You’ve been hit before?” Isaac asked, the kind of question that wasn’t a question.

The crop retraced the same path down, from ass cheek to the back of my knee, and then back up, and back down, never varying in pressure or speed.

“I’m not going to hit you,” he promised.

My muscles twitched and unclenched. My cock jumped. I held my breath, unsure if I was more surprised that this felt good or embarrassed that Isaac was watching me work through the discovery. He switched to stroking the crop up and down the back of my other thigh, eliciting a fresh not-flinch. I warmed to the sensation by the second pass. My skin zinged, my hair stood on end, I felt all mushy inside. My spine was a clothesline again, and when my back arched, my legs spread.

Isaac laid a hand on my calf. I sighed with relief to feel his skin against mine. He squeezed gently, and his thumb stroked the muscle in my leg. Before I could really ask myself if this was a comforting touch meant to prepare me for something, the tress began its upward journey from the back of my knee, this time continuing to the small of my back and then down, skimming along the cleft of my ass, brushing right under my balls before following the length of my shaft to my head, where it suddenly tapped.

I screamed like he’d whipped me.

Isaac threw the crop away. I heard it clatter across the stone floor, followed by the ring and jangle as the stock pile of oddments he’d brought along was disturbed.

Isaac buckled something around my leg, just above my knee.

“Spread ’em,” he said.

I thought they were spread, but I let him guide my knees farther apart, till I could feel an actual draft.

“Hm,” I said, and would have clapped my knees together against the chill if Isaac hadn’t first buckled another cuff around my other thigh. When I tried to close my legs, something stopped me. Metal clanked softly, like the links in a chain, but this was no slithering chain—it was a bar, each end affixed to one of the padded leather cuffs above my knees.

I jerked my legs apart, but couldn’t widen them more than another inch. I tried to scissor them next. Things got even more awkward for me, and I nearly collapsed onto my swollen cock. I was just about to push myself up on my hands and knees when Isaac, always a step ahead of my own thoughts, caught the trailing end of my wrist bonds and tired it to the spreader bar. The silk strained against my back, following the cleft of my ass.

“Try it out. But don’t hurt yourself,” Isaac warned, and then the warm comfort of his hand lifted from my leg.

I couldn’t resist anymore. I yanked my wrists, but my arms remained bent and locked on either side of my head. I twisted and bucked, but the bar forced my knees a full forearm’s length apart. The silk rope connecting my wrists to the bar kept my back arched.

I tipped into a controlled fall, landing on my side on the soft bedroll. I rolled onto my back and that was worse than being on my knees. My legs splayed hopelessly, bent and trapped partially beneath me. My body flexed and strained, unused to being tested like this. I sweated from the exertion and then shivered when my damp skin cooled. I forgot how to speak. I made animal sounds I didn’t recognize as mine, snarls and growls at first and then whimpers when nothing I did worked.

I could feel Isaac’s eyes on me the whole time. I hated him! I toyed with the idea of rolling over there and biting him. My wrists grew sore from yanking against the bonds, which were only tight enough to hurt when I fought them. The snug cuffs around my legs never budged. My knees remained locked the same distance apart. I had goosebumps up the ass and my nose was starting to run. For all my efforts, I couldn’t even scrape the blindfold off.

Gracelessly, foregoing all dignity, I jerked and humped back into the position that was most comfortable—on my knees and elbows, with my hips up and my spine soft. At least bent over like this, I could wipe my fate-damned nose on the blanket. I trembled with impotent rage. I was hot inside, like a fucking forge, but my skin was cold and clammy.

“All good?” Isaac asked.

I huffed out a big breath of air like an annoyed horse.

Isaac did two things then.

He laid a hand between my shoulder blades—fates! why did his touch make me feel better when he was the reason I was in this mess?—and he dropped something solid, cold, and heavy to rest on the small of my back as if I were a table.

My blood chilled.

My body screamed at me to give one more desperate twist to buck off the horseshoe-shaped piece of metal weighing me down, but I only froze beneath the coldness of it and the living warmth of Isaac’s hand, rubbing my back.

“Do you know what this is?” Isaac nudged the metal a few inches down my back toward my ass, but for the most part left it alone, letting me get used to the weight of it.

Yes, I knew what it was.

I knew exactly what it was—and I knew what he was going to do with it.


	21. Chapter 21

I tensed, trembling again. The more I tried to suppress my nerves, the heavier the hook in the small of my back became. Hopelessly, I commanded my body to relax, figuring anything going up my ass would hurt less if I succeeded, but my conscious logic failed to overcome the instinct to brace myself.

A warm breath chased the cold air from between my legs. I grunted in surprise. Isaac chuckles and blew again, his face so close I could feel the hint of his stubble against my more sensitive skin. Then something hot and wet flicked against me and I gasped.

He licked me! The only thing more shocking than the first time it happened was the second. His tongue slid down to the tender place behind my balls. I’d never been touched there, and I buried my face in the blanket and groaned. His hands splayed over my cheeks, spreading me, giving himself more access, tongue delving deeper like I was something to eat. I didn’t realize how much noise I was making till he moaned in response, the vibrations of his throat buzzing through me, driving me to near convulsions, so that by the time I felt his finger, it was too late to stop fucking back against him. His finger slid in slowly, letting me adjust to each knuckle. My first instinct was to pull away, but his other hand tightened on my backside and he slid the finger in and out. My insides softened. My focus sharpened. Pleasure coiled in my depths. I rocked back in time with his hand, trying to take him deeper each time, to make myself open wider.

He pulled out and I whined, blind, bound, and unable to force him to continue—

His hand returned, made slippery by the oil he used when we fucked. Two fingers pressed in where there’d only been one and I groaned with agony and relief.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” said Isaac. His breathless excitement stirred something in me. I glowed with the praise—if that’s what it was—and barely clenched at all when he added a third. I wanted to prove I could take it, that I could do this for him.

His fingers rotated and scissored, stroked and curled. My fists clenched painfully in my hair—I had nothing else to hold onto. I felt adrift in this unfamiliar sensation, and yet unable to differentiate between the pleasure and the pain. Suddenly, the spreader bar wasn’t wide enough; I fought the buckles keeping my knees a set width apart and pushed back against Isaac’s hand with fresh vigor. My cock, so raw and hard it felt bruised, slapped up against my belly. If anything touched me now, I’d burst; I thought I might come undone just from Isaac’s fingers curling and thrusting inside me.

And then they were gone.

I crouched there gasping, forgetting about the hook resting on my back till Isaac picked it up. I felt light and defenseless without it, as though I might float away. Then a cold ball traced down the cleft of my ass, erasing all other thoughts from my mind.

The metal ball stopped just over my asshole. My body strained as if reaching for it.

“Go on, then,” Isaac said.

He held the hook steady but waited for me to accept it. I pushed back slowly, experimentally. The metal was like ice, hard and unyielding, so different from his warm, flexible fingers. The ball invaded me. I stretched and stung, teeth clenched. The stinging became a burn despite the coldness of the metal. I was ready to admit defeat—and then it was in. My body closed around the cold ball and it sank into me, leaving my aching asshole to pucker around the thinner rod the ball was attached to. I moaned as the metal took its time warming against my insides. Isaac patted my hip and said nice things to me and I basked in the attention he gave; I was so content and aroused and confused to be doing these things he asked that I felt dimly ashamed, but too drunk on pleasure to really grapple with it so long as my cock was that hard.

He transferred the silk rope from the spreader bar to the other end of the hook. The metal curved with my body, inside and out, held in place by the length of silk that snaked up to my wrists. When I forced my hands back behind my head as far as I could, I got a little slack in the rope. If I tried to bring them forward, even just to the top of my head, the hook drove deeper into me—not painfully, but almost.

Isaac’s hand slipped under my chest and pushed. He helped me upright and left me kneeling. Like he’d done with the bonds and spreader, he backed off as soon as the knot was secure, giving me space to test my newest hobble. Through a series of tricks and encouragement, he’d maneuvered me into the exact position in which I’d seen him in the king’s chambers all those weeks ago.

I don't know what I’d imagined then. That it had been Isaac’s good behavior that kept him in this position? Had I thought escaping would be as simple as deciding “I’m done with this game” and shimmying to freedom? There was no slack between the hook and my bound wrists. I had to arch my back and flex my shoulders constantly, or the pressure in my ass would increase. I tried bending backward, thinking maybe I could simply bear down and push the hook out, but Isaac had me already bent close to my limit. I couldn’t give myself more than an inch or two.

How could he stand this? How could he kneel in the middle of the king’s huge bed like a stage, and laugh and joke about half the palace staff seeing him like this?

I fought it a little, my fright rising. But a sharp word from Isaac—and a sharp pain—made me be still.

“Sorry,” I said, my voice hoarse with fear.

“Sorry for what?” Isaac asked. I could feel his eyes on me.

“For…” I struggled to answer through the shaking. “Am I doing it wrong?”

“No,” he said, and I wished I could have seen him then. “You’re perfect.”

That soothed something in me. I inhaled all the way down to my belly. Some of the trembling subsided.

My eyes closed, I felt Isaac’s hand on my abdomen, sliding around to cup my hip.

I found the courage to ask, “You won’t leave me stuck like this, right?” I forced a chuckle, as if to prove I was only joking, when the mere thought of him walking out without untying me was enough to set me at the edge of hysterics.

“I would never walk away from you when you’re like this.”

“I don’t want anyone else to see me.” I felt guilty admitting it. Like being put on display was okay for Isaac but I was too good for it.

“Never,” he promised, kissing me just above the naval. “When you’re like this, you’re mine and no one else’s.”

That did it. I arched prettily and held my position, unmoving, barely breathing. Isaac purred and slid his hand up my side, admiring me. His mouth was hot when he kissed my chest, tongue swirling over my nipple, then moved away to leave it cold and erect.

“I wonder if you could get off like this,” he said, lips brushing my skin. “Twitch the hook—don’t yank it.”

I obeyed, twitching my wrists upwards. The hook in my ass twitched too, striking a bundle of nerves inside me. I nearly doubled over—Isaac and the rope connecting my wrists to the hook stopped me.

He propped me back up. “Keep going.”

I twitched my wrists repeatedly. The ball on the hook was so deep—deeper than Isaac’s fingers had gone—and every subtle movement nudged it forward. My cock twitched and jerked, still untouched. I shimmied and wiggled between Isaac’s hands on my hip and waist. He kissed me, and I opened my mouth to receive him, but could barely control my lips and tongue amidst the overwhelm of sensation.

Bypassing my cock—the slightest brush against it was enough to make me yelp—he gripped my balls in a firm hand and whimpered with his own delight.

“You’re so close,” he said.

Stopping took fate-changing effort, but I sank back on my haunches, wrists still, breathing hard.

“What’s wrong?”

“I want you to fuck me,” I said.

Isaac playfully bit one of my nipples. “And I want to watch you fuck yourself.”

“I won’t come till you’re inside me.”

Isaac’s hands and lips stilled against me.

“Please,” I said.

His arm went around me. He undid the knot with a single tug, and the hook became heavier without my wrists pulling up on it. He pushed me down onto my back; I kept my hands behind my head and left the blindfold in place. Isaac hauled up on the spreader bar, pushing it—and my knees—toward my chest till I was bent nearly double. I yelped in surprise, and yelped again when he tugged the hook firmly, giving me little time to readjust to the ball as it exited me. When I was stretched open the widest, he pushed the ball back in, and I snarled in fury, reaching for him at last.

“Put your hands back down,” he commanded.

I let my arms fall.

He continued to fuck me with the ball, pulling it always to the widest point and then plunging it back in, striking that chord inside me. I cried out and begged him to slow down, to speed up, to take it out, to fuck me with it harder, to fuck me himself. The pressure inside me built to unbearable levels. I squirmed and bucked even when he told me not to, and at the last possible second—the hook slid out of me completely.

I lay on my back panting. Isaac pushed up on the spreader bar, lifting my lower half partially off the bedroll. He thumbed my entrance. I moaned, exhausted, then quieted when his cock, slippery with oil, rubbed against me. I felt loose and tingly. The fat head pressed against the backs of my balls; his shaft slid between my cheeks.

“Isaac,” I said. “Isaac…”

The head of his cock circled my asshole before plunging inside. My head snapped back and I screamed against my own bicep as he fucked me. I came in a rush of splitting agony without so much as a hand to stroke me. He only shoved my legs up a little more and pumped harder, one hand on the spreader bar, the other crushing down against my chest, holding me in place. I felt stretched and bloated, too full of him. I bucked, but it was no good. He was in me. I couldn’t shake him. I was crying out with each new thrust when at last he slowed and his cock twitched, filling me.

I wept. He hastily unbuckled one of my legs and left the spreader bar to dangle from the other as he drew me into an embrace. My heart beat frantically; I thought it would burst. He untied my hands but I jerked back when he tugged on the blindfold. He left it alone, still covering my eyes, and I dozed. I woke up and he was still there, still holding me, so I slept a little more.

The third time I woke, we were tucked beneath the blanket, curled up on the bedroll together. Pressed against his chest, I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or awake, but I nuzzled into his neck and whispered, “I love you.”

He didn’t say anything—but his body went tense. I knew he’d heard.

I sat up a bit and yanked off the blindfold. It seemed silly now. Isaac stared up at me from where he lay.

“Did you hear me?” I said.

By now, the candle had burned very low, but there was enough light to see his face had gone pale. “Yeah, I … I heard you.”

This time I didn’t say anything

“Are you sure?” he asked.

The question stung worse than my still-stinging asshole. I lay down with my back to him.

He traced meaningless designs on my back. I wanted him to grab me and pull me into him. I wanted to march back up to my shared room and leave him in the dungeon. I didn’t even care if he kept my bedroll and I slept on the cold floor between Sir Etta and her page.

“Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“The dungeon.”

“Yes, but do you know the name of the castle?”

I did.

“And so if you know the name of the castle, you must remember the name of the city we’re in?”

I did. Even though I couldn’t believe he’d steered our post-coital conversation—once again—toward geography and politics, I remembered the name of the city we were in.

“And if you know which city we’re in, you’ll know what’s fifteen miles north of us?”

“The southernmost border of Marcontin, population two hundred thousand, ruled by a governing body rather than a single king, exporting mostly building materials and wool, importing spices and dyes; on tense relations with us, but currently at peace.”

“And are there slaves in Marcontin?” Isaac asked softly, still tracing nonsense squiggles between my shoulder blades.

“They are a free nation, having outlawed slavery some four hundred years ago,” I recited without emotion, unwilling to let the hurt he’d dealt me by ignoring my confession sneak into my voice.

“Did you know,” said Isaac, “that any slave who crosses the border into Marcontin cannot legally be retrieved by anyone in this country? To do so would be akin to an invasion—an act of war. And Marcontin is larger, and more populated. We are a peninsula; our only access to the mainland is through them.”

I went still. “I didn’t know that.”

He kissed the nape of my neck.

I turned to look at him when I asked, “Why don’t you run?”

He blinked, eyes sparking in the dim light. “I am not a slave,” he said. “I am a member of the royal family.”

“So?”

“If I cross the border into Marcontin and they refused to return me, that would be akin to an act of war. They would be accused of holding the prince consort as a hostage.”

“I see,” I said.

“Do you?”

“I do.”

This time, it was Isaac who turned his back to me. “We should get some sleep. You have a big day tomorrow. Etta’s actually got a chance to win this thing.”

It wasn’t five minutes before he was asleep. I scooted closer to his back, listening to his even breathing, and inhaled his musky scent, filling my lungs with him, before pressing the lightest of kisses to his sweat-nappy curls and crawling out from under the blanket. I paused to tuck him back in, trapping the warmth of our bodies. I don’t know why I took such risks to ensure his comfort. Maybe a part of me hoped he would wake up and ask me what I was doing.

He didn’t even stir.

I left the nub of a candle burning.

Upstairs, the sky through the castle windows and holes in the wall was pitch black. I made my way by feel back to the inhabited section of the castle, where I was able to travel by torchlight. The castle slept around me. Nobody stopped me till I reached the stables. The guard there stepped out of the shadows and put a hand to my chest, barring my entry.

“What’s your business at this hour?” he asked.

“I’m Sir Etta’s squire.”

“I know who you are.”

“So—I need to warm up her horse.”

“You’re hours ahead of the other squires.”

“She wants an early start. She’s first in the lineup for today’s joust,” I lied. I had no idea where she fell in the lineup, and I was hoping the guard shared my ignorance.

He yawned and let me pass.

Sir Etta’s horse woke with a cranky snort, and stomped his hoof the whole time I was saddling and bridling him. I rode out of the barn and toward the tourney field, back straight and head up lest the guard was watching me.

As soon as I was sure the night had cast her veil between his eyes and my back, I turned the horse north and rode hard for Marcontin.


	22. Chapter 22

I’d never ridden alone through the wilderness at night. Sir Etta’s horse cantered gamely on, surprisingly amiable, having been woken up in the dead of night. I knew my stars well enough to hold my northern course, but I wasn’t sure how to keep track of the miles. I saw only farms and small villages along the way, and skirted well around these straggly signs of civilization, slowing the horse to a walk to better listen out for any signs that I’d been spotted or pursued.

After two hours, Sir Etta’s horse paused to consider a low stone wall crossing our path, stretching farther than the eye could see to the east and west, but rising only knee-high. We were over it easily.

Several miles later, the thud hooves against sod became the clop of iron shoe against stone. I dismounted and put a hand to the ground. The night was at its darkest, but the road beneath my hand was smooth and hard—neither packed dirt nor cobblestones. I looked around, squinting against the blackness, but I could see no structures from where I stood, no lights in windows.

I was in Marcontin. I’d crossed the boundary between this country and my own without passing so much as a soldier or signpost. I thought back to the low stone wall—had that been it? The humble dividing line between two rival countries?

I could only haul myself back into the saddle and follow the road.

Less than an hour later, I entered a city. The homes of the outermost ring—they would have been the slums, in the king’s city—reposed behind lush gardens. Fruit trees grew along the smooth road, which continued even through what had to be the poorest districts. Plums and peaches hung over gates and fences, ripe for the picking. My mouth watered as each fruit passed within reach overhead, but I resisted. I didn’t want to be branded a thief after my first five minutes in a new country.

Sir Etta’s horse had no such reservations, and no amount of tongue-clicking or heel-kicking was enough to see us moving before the stubborn beast had eaten enough fruit to soak its muzzle and breast in juice.

We rode on. I could do nothing to disguise the ringing of horseshoes against the road, which as far as I could tell, had no seams or cracks where the flagstones were joined together. But if it wasn’t flagstones we traveled on, what was it?

The street lamps, too, were mysterious to me—the flame burned on a wick without a candle. I gazed into each sphere of light we passed, dazzling my eyes and wondering if this was sorcery.

We passed a few businesses—shops mostly, with creaking, wooden signs hanging over the walkways—but the city seemed to be dead asleep. Not one candle burned in a window. Occasionally a dog would bark, or a cat would streak across the road, but I wandered the city like a ghost for nearly an hour before at last spotting a light up ahead.

The horse’s ears pricked. He picked up his hooves in a hopeful trot, probably looking for a rest in a cozy stable.

But the building was no humble barn. Taller than its neighbors, with a spire and huge, carved doors, I recognized it for what it was immediately: a temple, the grander, richer cousin to the one in the king’s slums. More of the strange, wax-less candles burned inside, the light pouring out in a rainbow of colors through the stained glass.

The doors, even at this hour, were flung wide.

I hitched the horse to a lamppost and went inside.

As much as I longed for a new life, the familiar sight of pews and an altar was a comfort to me. Here, at least, was something I recognized! Here, I knew what to do.

I sat in the last row and bowed my head.

I still didn’t understand praying. It was at once too simple and entirely mysterious. But I closed my eyes and waited for something to happen.

Five minutes later, something did.

A voice—a string of jumbled sounds and syllables—broke the silence of the chapel.

I lifted my head.

An old woman in a long nightdress stood at the end of my pew, holding a chamber stick high enough to shine on my face.

She repeated the string of syllables.

I could only stare.

She frowned. Then, haltingly, asked in my own language, “Can you…understand me now?”

I nodded.

“Are you…one of those? One of them?” She waved a hand vaguely in the direction I’d come from.

“A slave,” I said.

“There are no slaves here.”

Suddenly, I was afraid.

If I wasn’t a slave, what was I? I gripped the back of the next pew hard, clinging on for support.

She must have read the fear on my face. “There, there. What is your name?”

My hand flew to my throat. I had no answer to give.

“Come. Are you hungry? Tired?”

I was both.

I followed her through a door set in a discreet alcove. She took me into a small kitchen. A nozzle stuck out of the wall. When she turned it, water gushed out of a pipe into a basin. I made a small noise of surprise. She didn’t even have to prime the pump!

She gave me a rag and soap and privacy to use both. By the time I’d dried my face, she was back with a tray of food—simple fare, bread and stew. Again, I was relieved to be met with familiar things.

After a few bites, I remembered my manners—and the hour.

I swallowed a half-chewed mouthful and asked, “Did I wake you?”

She shook her head. “I sleep poorly. I often check the chapel during my walks at night, to see if anyone’s in need.”

“People like me?”

She nodded.

“Slaves?” I clarified.

“There are no slaves here.”

“How many slaves have you not found, then?”

She laughed. “Many.”

I couldn’t believe it. All this time—I thought fate was unchangeable. But here was my chance to put my old country and all its lost souls behind me. I could go anywhere I wanted—why stop in Marconton? I could find a ship, pay my passage by selling Sir Etta’s horse. I could go wherever I wanted, see the world like Isaac’s mother.

But how far would I have to go to outrun the memories? Across how many seas would the shame of running away pursue me?

And was I coward enough to find out?

When Isaac refused to meet my eye after I confessed my love to him, I’d been hurt. I’d assumed his silence on the matter meant he didn’t feel the same way. I’d been deaf and blind to the truth that was written all over him.

He didn’t say I love you. He didn’t need to. Instead, he said, “Marconin is a free country. It is fifteen miles that way.”

I set down the bowl of stew, unfinished. “I’ve made a mistake.”

The woman’s eyes widened. She touched my arm. “They’re all afraid when they first get here. But you’ll see—you’ll find a new life. Your own. You’ll—”

“I have to go back.”

“Stay the night. There’s a room through there—a bed you can sleep in. In the morning, you’ll—”

“In the morning it will be too late!” I leapt to my feet and made for the door, pausing only long enough to look back and say, more calmly, “Thank you. For the food. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

Sir Etta’s horse dozed, leaning against the lamppost. He woke up with an annoyed snort when I clambered onto his back.

It had taken me three hours to get this far.

Based on the thin gray line along the horizon, I had about half that time to make it back.

* * *

It was dawn when I charged into the stables on a foaming, reeling horse. I undressed and brushed down the poor beast, my heart heavy with regret. Exhaustion or no, this animal would have to be ready for the tournament in a few hours.

As likely as it was Sir Etta would string me up before lunchtime, I had bigger things on my mind.

The castle was only just rousing. Outside, a few squires and pages were out warming up horses. Inside, slaves ran to and fro with trays of food and baskets of laundry. Few nobles were moving around this early, but I was sure Sir Etta was stalking around wondering where I’d disappeared to.

If she only knew the half of it.

I jogged down halls and corridors, pausing only to take a torch from the wall. Belowground, it was as dark now as last night. What need did a dungeon have for windows? Sunshine was too cheerful for the criminal.

And the heartbroken.

My boots scuffed on the stone floor as I tried to remember which cell we’d shared last night. The candle had finally burned out. The only light was my own.

Isaac must have heard my hesitant, searching steps.

“Tell the king he can fucking wait!”

Remembering the way at last, I stepped into the correct cell to find him curled on my bedroll. Our “toys” lay scattered and forgotten. They didn’t look so out of place down here—whether objects of torture or pleasure, it was hard to tell just by looking at them. The spent candle was a puddle of wax on the floor.

I slotted the torch into an empty sconce.

At the sound of this further intrusion, Isaac whipped around, face a twisted mask of misery, and screamed, “I said he can bloody well wait!”

His words died when he truly saw me.

For a long time, or so it felt, we only stared at one another.

I was a breath away from throwing myself down in prostration and begging forgiveness, when Isaac said, “You came back.”

He scrubbed his splotchy face like he couldn’t trust his eyes. “You fucking fool—you actually came back.”

I stood there, unsure whether he was happy or angry to see me. “It’s a good plan, Isaac. I want to see it through.”  
“It’s not a good plan! I can’t believe you came back for this dumb fucking plan…”

“Not just the plan.”

He held his face in his hands. “I can’t protect you if we fail.”

“We won’t fail.” I sank onto the bedroll and drew him closer. His shoulders shook. He fell willingly into my arms. I kissed his head and promised him, “And I’m not leaving this wretched country till you’re free to come with me.”


	23. Chapter 23

Sir Etta won every competition despite her tired, cranky horse and rode back to the capital city with the two other highest-ranking knights in the company of the king—or the company of the king’s enclosed carriage, in which he was hidden most of the time to disguise his ever-increasing weakness.

To avoid the crown prince recognizing me, I hung well back from Sir Etta, finding odd jobs up and down the long caravan. I was no engineer, but whenever someone needed brute strength to unstick a wheel from the mud or repair an axle, I was there.

Most of the other knights and travelers broke off to set up for the final tourney in a fallow field, but I rode on with the royal family and the three potential grand champions, who would be hosted in the palace for the duration of the tourney. As we rode through the slums, peasants gathered in the side streets and alleys to watch the king’s carriage trundle by. Some of the guards—probably the same men who’d ridden into a crowd brandishing clubs—threw coins and food scraps, then laughed when their “charity” triggered fights among the poor.

Sir Etta stared straight ahead, and I did my best to stare at her back, my stomach in knots of rage and disgust. I couldn’t help but compare these slums to what I’d seen in Marcontin.

Someone caught my eye—a man, neither on horseback nor scrabbling for alms. He stood with his arms folded and his shoulder leaning against a post in front of a two-story hovel. The bruises had long faded from his eyes, but his nose was permanently crooked.

The prostitute from the brothel! But what was he doing here, in the slums? The brothel was closer to the market, in the middling district. Had he run away, or did he live here when he wasn’t serving clients? I studied him intently as my horse followed the line. Too late did I realize he was studying me in turn.

The smirk and nod I got from him was one of recognition—despite meeting him as Prince Bartholomew’s cousin, and passing by him now as Sir Etta’s middling squire.

Fear gripped me in its cold fist. He need only call out to me by my royal name and the crown prince would ride back looking for his cousin—and I’d be discovered. My mind raced. The side streets were too crowded to break away from the line without drawing more attention to myself. What if they caught and tortured me? Would I give up the names of my coconspirators? Would I give up Isaac? I’d been hit before, beaten even—but never whipped. I didn’t know how much I could take. A sinking feeling in my gut whispered that, if tested, I’d break.

The line kept moving.

The prostitute with the broken nose fell behind my line of vision.

I didn’t dare look over my shoulder for him.

# # #

A week later, Sir Etta took the grand championship. The winner’s purse would provide her manor with enough gold to finish building the mill, which she intended to secretly rent out to smaller farms and manors for less than the king charged in taxes for his citizens to use the broken-down one on the edge of the city.

The crowd was still screaming her name when she turned and walked off the field, sack of coins banging against her leg. She probably would have led her page and horses all the way home to her manor without looking back if the herald’s voice hadn’t risen above the cheers, proclaiming:

“THE CROWN PRINCE BARTHOLOMEW CHALLENGES THE CHAMPION, SIR ETTA, TO A JOUST!”

She (and I) spun around in surprise. Amidst the din of chaos, the prince on his black charger had snuck up on us without our notice.

I bowed hastily. Sir Etta bowed too—less hastily.

“I am honored, my prince,” she drawled. “But my horse is very tired.”

The crown prince smiled, lazy and glacial. “It’s not a real match, my lady.”

Sir Etta stiffened at the incorrect title.

The prince continued, unaware of the danger he was in. “We just break a few lances—give the nobles something to gawk at. You could always surrender if you prefer.”

Sir Etta did not prefer.

She threw the sack of coins at her page and snapped at me, “Lance. Now.”

The prince wore lightweight armor and carried a shield emblazoned with the royal coat of arms, so rarely put to use that the paint was barely scratched. Sir Etta’s armor was heavier, lacking a shield. Her opponents’ lances broke against the reinforced breastplate and shoulder guard.

I shoved her and her heavy armor back onto her horse and passed up the first lance.

“Let’s think about this,” I said desperately. “It’s not a real match—he said so himself! It’s just for show. Please, whatever you do, do not try to knock the king’s son and heir off his horse!”

She did not appear to be listening to me.

A horn blared. The flag snapped up. Her horse, already heated from the earlier match, charged off with a trumpeting neigh.

In perfect symmetry, both Sir Etta and Prince Bartholomew lowered and set their lances. They both struck home—the target, the breastplate—and both lances shattered prettily. Pages ran out with rakes to clear the splinters before the horses’ next pass. Both jousters went galloping back to their starting points.

“Fantastic!” I thought I’d faint from relief. “That was amazing!” There was no reason to let her know I was referring to her restraint.

Sir Etta scowled and snatched the second lance.

The horn. The flag. Both lances exploded in unison. The prince threw the splintered remains of his own at the raking pages and raised both arms, stirring up more applause as if he’d won something.

Sir Etta’s expression hardened to stone.

“Please don’t,” I begged.

“Lance!” she snapped.

Horn. Flag. Ten men could not have held her horse back.

When both lances broke cleanly, I thought fate herself had appeared before me to return my remaining years.

Then what remained of Sir Etta’s lance skidded off the prince’s shield and slipped under his pauldron. When it reemerged, the splintered, ragged end was bright red with blood.

The cheers became gasps. The crown prince clutched his arm, but could not reach the wound through his armor, no matter how lightweight and fashionable it might have been.

Sir Etta turned her horse sharply and came tearing back to where her page and I waited by the wagon. The crowd could only watch and point, transfixed, as surgeons and their assistants rushed onto the field to tend the bleeding prince. While every eye was turned the other way, Sir Etta leapt from her horse and shoved me under one of the walkways connecting two stands.

She tore open the front of my shirt, exposing my chest and one shoulder. I squawked in surprise but was too slow to defend myself when she stabbed my bicep with the same broken lance.

The pain was like no other—neither the blow of a fist nor the knick of a kitchen knife. The splintered end tore through my upper arm like teeth, cleaving out a chunk of flesh. I howled and clutched the wound, but any attempts to apply pressure and stem the blood flow only added to my agony. A flap of skin hung, ragged and tattered. What torn flesh wasn’t painted red with gore was faintly greenish-blue—

My slave tattoo!

Sir Etta had shaved most of it off—and what tattooed flesh remained would probably blacken and drop off, if I didn’t die of infection first.

An animalistic roar drew my attention away from my wound. The crown prince marched toward us, surgeons and assistants scrabbling to keep up, pleading with him to let them clean his arm. He acknowledged none of them. His lips drew back from his teeth and he was lifting a sword, bugged eyes fixed on Sir Etta’s back.

There wasn’t time to warn her. I ripped her sword from the wagon. The sheath flew away as I swung the blade into position. My sword met the prince’s with a ring of steel. Bart’s shock stretched his features. I didn’t give him time to recover.

To lift a weapon against a member of the royal family was treason, and punishable by death. Even with a fair warning, Sir Etta could not defend herself. But I—I was just her nameless squire. I could die—disappear—a half-dozen times before I ran out of lives to slip back into.

I pushed the prince back without mercy, delivering a series of slashes and thrusts I could only hope he’d block. The black-clad surgeons and their assistants scattered like a flock of startled crows when the prince retreated into their circle. They reminded me of the goats, my first day training with Sir Etta.

Prince Bartholomew overcame his surprise and fought back in earnest. My ears rang with the effort and focus. This was my first time with a sharpened blade. I couldn’t hear the crowd’s horrified excitement, nor the herald’s calls for order, nor Sir Etta’s insults.

I’d sparred with the prince as his cousin. I knew he was good. But he was in full armor, while I fought in a tunic and pants, unprotected, but lighter on my feet and more flexible. I also knew he was used to people letting him win, whether he realized it or not. He wasn’t prepared for an attack that kept coming after he faltered or stumbled. He wasn’t prepared for my foot to hook his ankle, sending him sprawling and his sword flying.

He lay in the dust at my feet, chest heaving. The fight took only seconds—the guards were still running across the field to apprehend me.

I threw Sir Etta’s sword down where he couldn’t reach it and took one last look at his face, drinking in the stupid expression of pants-wetting fear.

I shouldn’t have indulged.

Bemusement replaced his pure terror.

“Cousin?” he said.

If I soiled my trousers then, it didn’t stop me from vaulting onto Sir Etta’s horse and fleeing the arena.


	24. Chapter 24

The prostitute with the broken nose answered my banging on the door of the hovel. Sir Etta’s horse ran on without me, losing itself in the winding, narrow streets of the slums.

“Can I hide here?” I said.

He stuck his head out the door and looked up and down the street. He could probably already hear the pounding hooves of the mounted guards about to charge around the corner at any second; that or my racing heart.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Beat the prince in an illegal duel.”

He opened the door wider and I raced inside.

“I’m getting ready for work,” he said, and took me back to his room. The hovel, despite appearing very small from the outside, was in fact even smaller than I ever could have imagined. The interior was broken up into two levels of tiny, windowless rooms on either side of a long hall. The rooms were hardly larger than the beds within them, and none of them had doors. My host’s personal sanctuary was empty of personal affects, except what could fit in the satchel resting on his makeshift vanity (two crates, a board, and a hand mirror), and his walls were bare, save for one of the WANTED posters depicting the rabble-rouser from last winter’s riot in front of the temple. All the other posters around the city had been torn down and used to start fires in hearths. This was the first one I’d seen in weeks. I suppose it was meant to be funny.

Balanced on an upturned crate, I cleaned and dressed my wound best I could, binding my upper arm with the ripped-off hem of my own tunic, while the prostitute threw off his own comfortable clothes and redressed in something significantly more revealing and complicated.

“Are you going to walk all the way to the brothel dressed like that?” I asked. “Don’t you worry about…?”

“About what? People snatching me up and dragging me into the alley to have their wicked way with me? They’ll do that no matter what you’re wearing.”

“You’re very well spoken.”

“For a whore, you mean?”

I blushed with shame.

“So are you. For a slave.” He nodded to my bandaged arm. “You know a wound like that is a dead giveaway that you’re on the run.”

“I’m not running.”

“No, you’re hiding in a whore’s bedroom.”

Down the hall, the hovel’s front door banged open. Boots shook the floorboards throughout the tiny building.

A voice punched through the thin walls: “By order of the king, we are to search this premises for a known fugitive!”

“Well don’t let me stand in your way!” the prostitute shouted back.

I doubled over with nausea, but my host only dragged me by the hair to a trapdoor he’d uncovered while I was trying not to be sick. He shoved me down into the damp dark.

“Not a word,” he ordered, and replaced the loose floorboards.

I huddled beneath the floor as the king’s men stormed the hovel. The rooms were so small and barren, there were hardly any nooks and crannies to peek inside, and even less furniture to look behind.

In mere minutes, the search had moved on down the street.

After a long moment of silence, the trapdoor lifted on silent, well-oiled hinges. A hand reached down to help me out.

“Thanks.” I brushed the dirt from my clothes. I don’t know why I bothered—I was covered in blood.

“Anytime.” The prostitute had done his makeup while I was huddling in a hole and the guards were trampling around his room. “I have to go to work now.”

I nodded and said without thinking, “I have to go home.”


	25. Chapter 25

Harking back to my time spent map-making while the prince got soused in brothels, I made my way from the slums to the palace walls, avoiding the troops of guards searching the city. It wasn’t especially hard; I needed only to steer clear of the armed and armored people screaming “We are to search this premises for a known fugitive!”

Getting into the palace was another matter. I couldn’t very well walk through the gates without an escort, while matching the description of the guy who drew a weapon against the crown prince.

It was too bright, the streets were too crowded, and I was too exposed. I slunk into an alley and climbed to the roof of the tallest house around.

From my vantage point, I watched and waited.

The sun was low in the sky when the king’s carriage rolled through the palace gates. Not long after, the guests began to arrive: a caravan nearly as long as the one for the traveling fair and tournament. I considered trying my luck at hitching a ride—unnoticed—with one of the nobles.

Dusk descended in a purplish haze. Lamplighters rushed out to light the lamps, and still I berated myself for not taking action yet, when another set of voices and drew my attention to the other side of the roof I crouched atop

Shimmying to the edge, I looked down into the narrower street behind the tall house. A single mule-drawn wagon, groaning beneath a massive delivery of firewood, trundled toward the side gate Isaac once snuck me through.

The driver was arguing with the homeowner whose carriage he was blocking. But the mule’s harness strap had snapped, and the heavy wagonload of firewood wasn’t going anywhere before he repaired it. He might have been done by now, had the noble not been haranguing him for making them late to the party—which was a mere two blocks away, and a perfectly walkable distance for anyone unconcerned with status and appearance.

I shinnied down the drainpipe to the alley and stole along the shadows to the back of the wagon. The firewood was stacked higher than I was tall, and I was pretty tall. Who but the royal family could afford so much at once? While the driver and the noble continued to argue, I shifted some of the firewood on the top of the stack to the edges, creating a dip in the middle of the pile I could tuck myself into. I made sure the toes of my boots weren’t poking higher than the logs, and did my best to trick myself into believing I was comfortable, and not suffering from a hundred splinters.

Ten minutes later, the harness was repaired, and the wagon was trundling toward the palace’s side gate. I crossed my fingers and held my breath through the driver’s conversation with the guards, and again when he spoke to the scullery maid.

“Leave the wagon there,” she said. “Take that empty one with you when you leave.”

She went back into the kitchens. When the door swung open, a clamor of voices spilled out—everyone rushing around preparing for tonight’s banquet. The driver took his time unhitching his mule from the current wagon and hitching it to the other.

When I was sure I was alone, I slipped down from the wagon and stuffed my tunic—recognizable for Sir Etta’s colors and my blood—into a rain barrel.

Then I ran around the palace and climbed the trellis into the map room, sending up a prayer of thanks to—not fate, what had she ever done for me?—but Isaac, for insisting I memorize every exploitable crevice of the palace.

The second floor was deserted, the rooms and corridors unlit. All the activity was sequestered in the kitchens, receiving hall, banquet hall, and ballroom. I scurried along to the royal family’s wing and let myself into the queen’s chambers—unguarded, on account of she was already dead.

Isaac’s tower was as lifeless as the second and third floors of the palace, but I knew it would be. That did little for my disappointment at not catching a moment alone with him.

I threw myself down on the rug to catch my breath.

I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I figured I could hide out in his tower for at least a few days while the search for Sir Etta’s squire died down. I looked forward to witnessing his surprise when he returned from the ball and found me here.

With that in mind, I heaved my tired bones up from the floor and got into the tub, not wanting to smell like a pile of horse dung when we were reunited. I’d shared little more than a glance with him since our night in the derelict castle’s dungeon, and I was anxious and excited to discover what else he would do to me if I let him.

There would be no soaking in a hot bath. The water was cold. Of course it was—the hearth had gone untended for a month. I washed and dried in a hurry. Casting around for something to wear (if only for the pleasure of taking it off later), my hand fell on my snow-white wine server’s tunic, mostly forgotten since I passed myself off as the prince’s “cousin.”

I thought of the ballroom and banquet hall swelling with guests far beneath me. Dozens—hundreds—of nobles pouring into the palace, laughing and drinking, never even bothering to look into the faces of the slaves serving them.

I smiled.

I put on the tunic and snuck downstairs. I used the hidden passageways to get to the banquet hall. The narrow doorway let me out behind a heavy tapestry, shielding me from the many eyes in the room, which was well-lit and bubbling with voices and laughter. Rather than sitting at tables, guests stood in gossiping clumps, while slaves bearing trays of food and drink moved through the crowd. The king sat on his throne on a raised dais; the smaller thrones on either side of him—one for the crown prince, one for the prince consort—were empty. A few guards were posted at the foot of the dais. The king sat unnaturally still. Layers of rich material disguised the state of his body, but his face was gaunt, his hair stringy and grayer than before, and his neck looked too thin to support the weight of his crown.

I waited till a slave passed near the tapestry I hid behind. He was carrying a tray of sweetmeats. Careful not to startle him, I slipped up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned gracefully, eyes widening in surprise when he found another slave instead of a noble.

“You’re to go back to the kitchens for more wine,” I said, taking the tray off him before he could argue.

“I—”

I slipped into the crowd before he could protest. I looked back once to be sure he wasn’t following me. He stood awkward and empty-handed for a moment, hesitating, before rushing off to the kitchens for the wine that wasn’t there. Or maybe it was, what did I know?

I wasn’t used to contending with this many nobles at once, but they were all the same to me. I bowed, I nodded, I said nothing, I stayed out of their way unless they wanted something, and then I gave it to them. I fell into an easy, comforting routine, but there was one thing missing—the fear. I was surrounded by enemies, but I no longer felt like a rabbit darting between wolves. I pictured the wolf as myself, and these pampered nobles the stupid flock of sheep I stalked amongst, none of them knowing that I was the one with the sharpest teeth. I had fought the prince and won. I had outrun the king’s men. I had infiltrated his palace and now—

A head of short, curly hair tossed in the corner of my vision.

—and now I was going to fuck his consort.

Isaac stood with a group of young men his age, listening politely as they interrupted one another. I checked that Bart wasn’t among them before sidling up to their circle.

I didn’t have to say anything. A few of the young men snatched morsels from the tray I carried without ever looking my way. Isaac waited till the one talking to him broke eye contact before looking my way instead—not at the food, but my face.

His lips parted when he recognized me.

I gave him a little bow. It would be expected—he was royal, after all.

Then he swiped the last four morsels off the tray and stuffed them all in his mouth.

“Damn,” he said, chewing, “you’re all out.”

I spun the empty tray behind my back with a flourish. None of the young men he’d been talking to were looking my way. Why should they? I was another slave in a white tunic. And now I didn’t even have any treats to offer them.

“Perhaps I’ll find more in a hidden passageway somewhere,” I said, and offered another quick bow before turning on my heel and marching off.

He joined me behind the tapestry moments later, dragging me into a fierce kiss.

“You bastard, I can’t believe you made it back inside,” he said, teeth dragging over my lips.

“I haven’t seen Sir Etta,” I said. “Was she punished?”

“No—well, not badly.”

My heart plummeted.

Isaac sensed the change in mood and broke off kissing me to say, “She managed to convince the king’s men you’d acted without her consent and stolen her horse as well. Still, they stripped her of the championship and barred her from the celebration tonight. She was allowed to go back to the manor, but without her winnings.”

I frowned.

“Hey. Chin up,” Isaac said, running his thumb along my jaw. “You saved her life! The guards were going to kill her for drawing the prince’s blood, but that little show you put on made everyone forget her slip with the lance.”

“I don’t think it was a slip,” I said, and showed him the bandage on my arm.

“Shit,” Isaac said, breathless with awe. “She’s brilliant.”

“You think it’s enough?”

“I think it’s more than enough. How’d you get back inside the palace gates?”

I told him about my surprise rendezvous with the broken-nosed prostitute, and my ride on top of the firewood.

“You’re brilliant,” Isaac said, and kissed me again, pushing me deeper into the passage between the walls.

Suddenly, the tapestry concealing the entrance—and us—ripped away.

“You see, Father?” cried the crown prince when the light from the banquet hall fell on Isaac and me.

Silence washed over the crowd of nobles, running like a tide from those nearest us, all the way to the dais on the far-end of the hall. Then someone laughed—a sharp knife-cut of a sound, stifled as quickly as it sprang forth—and the atmosphere became oppressively grim.

The king rose from his throne. He did not sound so weak when he bellowed, “Bring him to me!”

They’d caught me after all.

Isaac shoved me deeper into the dark passageway, hissing, “Go!”

I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t run away again.

The prince caught both our wrists and dragged us out into the light.

“I knew I’d catch you eventually, you little savage,” Bart spat, and I realized with horror he wasn’t speaking to me—he didn’t even realize whose wrist he held onto, he was so elated at having caught Isaac sneaking around behind the king’s back.

I kept my head down, while Isaac drew attention to himself kicking Bart’s shins, clawing at his hand, and cursing him for all he was worth.

The crowd parted for us, slaves and nobles alike staring, mute and frozen, as we were marched toward the dais where the king still stood.

“Isaac,” the king said softly, his voice barely raising enough to reach the ears of those nearest him, “what is the meaning of this?”

“Go on,” said Isaac, for all to hear, “tell me to apologize! I’ll do it and fuck someone else tomorrow.”

Gasps from the crowd, as if they weren’t slurping up the spectacle Isaac created. My own stomach twisted into a stricken knot. What was he doing?

The king’s expression slackened into one of weary sadness. “An adulterer’s fate is a poor choice indeed, my boy.”

“Better to be a widower, Your Majesty?” Isaac sneered.

And then he spit at the king’s feet.

A chorus of angry shouts rang out from the crowd, every noble trying to jump to the defense of the king’s honor before his neighbor. The guards pressed in from in front of us, the crowd pressed in from the back, the gaps between bodies closed. Prince Bart let go of my arm, freeing up the fist he needed to backhand Isaac with enough force to topple him.

A hand snatched at the back of my tunic. A guard, I was sure of it, getting ready to slit my throat and roll my treasonous body behind a tapestry for the slaves to clean up later. I didn’t want to know the official punishment for consorting with the king’s consort.

But instead of a blade at my neck, it was a hand over my mouth. I glanced around wildly as the physician—never far from the king’s side—dragged me backwards through the line of guards, every one of which was focused on the royal family. I was a slave—a nameless, faceless nobody—and Isaac’s outburst had drawn every eye in the hall away from me. By tomorrow, the nobles wouldn’t even remember what I looked like, or even if anyone had truly been with Isaac behind that tapestry—for all I mattered, he might as well have been kissing himself.

The physician dragged me to the edge of the room, where a few other slaves in white tunics like mine had gathered, still clutching their trays and unsure what to do. They eyed me warily like I was carrying some plague. I wouldn’t want to stand next to me either. I struggled against the physician. Though he was a slight man, his limbs were like cables. Still, I might have broken free if he hadn’t snapped at two other slaves, “Help me hold him!”

Accustomed to strange orders, the men flanked me, each taking a wrist while the physician kept his arms locked round my middle. I wondered—if I shouted Isaac’s name, would that draw attention back to me? Or would it only make things worse for him?

I could barely see him over the heads of the nobles.

The king looked down from his raised dais, red-faced and struggling to maintain his composure.

“Repent,” he said.

Isaac’s voice, thick from the blow the crown prince had delivered: “I will not.”

The nobles heads turned wildly from one member of the royal family to the next.

Solemnly, the king nodded to his son. Prince Bartholomew said something to a guard, who bowed and jogged out of the hall. While he was gone, two other guards stepped into Isaac and Bart’s circle. I stood on tiptoe, hampered by the physician, trying to see what they were doing. The guards each took one of Isaac’s arms, but instead of restraining him the way the other slaves restrained me, they each tied a length of rope around his wrists and stepped away from him, pulling his arms out wide from his body.

The first guard returned. At first, I couldn’t be sure what he was carrying—more rope?—until he delivered it to Bart’s hand.

Then I knew.

The physician’s hand slapped over my mouth again a second before I could scream my protests, cursing the king. The nobles jostled and squawked as the guards pushed the crowd back, widening the circle around Isaac and the prince. A few ladies fell into a dead faint. Most of them were left to recover wherever they’d fallen, as every eye in the hall was fixed on Isaac where he stood, arms outstretched.

Prince Bart kicked the back of Isaac’s knees and he fell, presumably to kneel—I couldn’t see him over the crowd. I could see Prince Bartholomew as he circled Isaac, coming to a stop facing the dais. His profile burned itself into my brain. I snarled into the physician’s palm. The physician called two more slaves to assist in restraining me.

The king looked on impassively as the crown prince drew back his arm.

Isaac was tough in so many ways. His life jaded him to certain horrors and humiliations—but physical pain, that was different. Even the roughest bed play had nothing on the executioner’s whip.

He screamed from the first lash—a quick, startled sound at first, but growing more desperate and gut-churning with every strike. His theatrical screams at the palace gates on the day we met had nothing on this. I wanted to scream, cry, collapse, die. I tried to count the lashes based on his screams, but panic set in as if I were the one being whipped.

“Ten,” the physician whispered in my ear. “It’s the lightest punishment there is.”

Was I supposed to be grateful?

Then the crowd parted. Isaac must have passed out: two of the king's guards carried him, limp, out of the hall, and the physician used the distraction to manhandle me into the secret passageway.

I raced through the walls of the palace and waited in the dark for ten minutes before stepping into the queen’s chambers, sure that the guards had to have made it this far long before now. I took the stairs to Isaac’s tower two at a time and flung the trapdoor open, only to find our bed cold and empty.

My insides twisted. After all that, they’d taken him to the king’s chambers, not his own.


	26. Chapter 26 - The End

Evening bled into night. I couldn’t sleep. I paced the octagonal room in a blind fury. I threw open the shutters and watched the slow train of carriages trundle out the palace gates, carrying the guests away. Despite the warm summer breeze circulating the tower, I built a fire to warm the water for Isaac’s bath.

The royal family had surely retired to their private chambers by now, and all I could think about was the king’s hands on Isaac, stroking and comforting him for the pain inflicted on his command; the king’s mouth, whispering sweetly in Isaac's ear, telling him it’s okay now, it’s over, and did he learn his lesson?

Finally, the trapdoor creaked open and Isaac’s curly head appeared. It took everything in me not to pounce on him. As soon as the rug was back in place, I moved toward him, but he flinched back violently, keeping his face turned away so I couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

“A little space,” he said. “Please.”

I gave it to him. I’d have preferred he asked for my liver, cleaned and spitted, but I gave him space. I sat on the vanity stool and watched, unspeaking, as he drew a bath, filling the tub only halfway, before stripping off his clothes and getting in. He knelt instead of reclined, giving me a full view of the bandages on his back as he splashed his face and underarms and washed between his legs. Even the splashes and slaps of bathwater sounded subdued, disheartening.

“Isaac…”

He drained the water and patted himself dry.

I thought I’d die if I had to sit on that stool another second.

He went to the bed and curled up with his back to me.

I couldn’t take it. He’d asked for space. And I’d give it to him. But I couldn’t sit still. I banked the fire, swept the rugs, and piled up the laundry.

“Lay down beside me,” he said, so softly I almost missed it.

I tried not to throw myself on the bed, for fear of spooking him or, worse, hurting him. I’d never seen him like this. So quiet. Subdued. I stretched out in the space next to him. He rolled over immediately, snuggling into my chest and hiding his eyes against my neck.

My heart fluttered, but I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to put my arms around him and jostle his wounds.

He was crying. I’d never seen him cry like that before. Not like that.

“When will it stop hurting?” He choked on the words between sobs.

“I’m not sure,” I said honestly. I’d never been whipped before. I’d seen others, some with the skin lashed completely from their backs, muscle split open to the bone. I’d seen the bodies of slaves who hadn’t survived such a punishment. Everything I did, I did to avoid such a fate. I lowered my gaze from my keepers’ eyes and bowed and demurred and obeyed my entire life in hopes of never knowing that pain. But now I held Isaac as he suffered exactly what I’d always been so careful to avoid, and I wished I could take it from him. I wished I could go back and fling myself in front of Bart’s whip in his place.

Eventually, his breathing evened out and we lay there awhile, me holding him and him holding on. He nuzzled his nose against my throat and pressed his lips softly to my chest.

“I still don't know your name,” he said.

“I’m whoever you want me to be.”

He slid a hand under my clothes.

“F— Isaac!” I pushed his shoulder down toward the bed.

“I can’t lie on my back,” he warned.

I let up immediately. He undid the laces on my pants and then pressed in even closer, his hand working me, slow and loose without the benefit of oil. I was a bundle of conflicting emotions, but desire was quickly winning out. I didn’t understand. He was still soft. After the ordeal he’d been through—why was he doing this for me?

I touched him, thinking only to return the favor, and he grunted softly.

“Don’t bother. The king already made me.”

“He made you?”

“He told me to think about the lashes… how much they hurt… and to think about this…” He squeezed my cock for emphasis. “How good it felt… he told me to choose. He said it’s my choice.”

“Oh, Isaac…” I was already going soft.

“I don't care!” Isaac said. “I don’t care what he says! It only proves that what we’re doing is right. A hundred times, I’d choose the whip over him. And a hundred more. The day I met you was the first time I’d ever seen inside the barn… I was so disgusted and scared at the same time. It smelled so bad, and there were people watching me from every stall, just slumped on the ground and leaning against walls like broken toys. I wanted to run away. I thought, it’s too risky, I’m in over my head. I thought, I'll rat out my friends to the king—they’ll all be killed and I’ll be safe. It was only for a second, but the thought was there. And every day since I’ve thought about it and felt like shit.”

I kissed the top of his head. “Feeling like shit won’t kill you, but sometimes it will stop you from killing someone else.”

Isaac cupped my face, staring at me intently. I lowered my gaze out of habit, then forced my eyes back up to his. He smiled in the second before he kissed me. His hand slid from my cheek to my nape, fingers in my hair. But it went no farther. The kiss, though far from chaste, was undemanding. My lips parted for his, and his tongue slid gently against mine. My body warmed like it had failed to do before, but there was an inexplicable excitement in knowing I wasn’t going to do anything about it, wasn’t going to seek any relief, was in fact going to do nothing but be here, in this bed, beside Isaac, doing whatever it took to make him feel better. The greatest thrill at all came from knowing I could do it, I was capable.

His tears salted our lips. I kissed them away. I held him through the waves of pain that came whenever he shifted in bed. I thought he’d never fall asleep, and then he did, with his face turned against my chest and his eyelashes glittering with tears like dew.

I wasn’t comfortable. My arm was trapped beneath me, plagued by pins and needles. But I didn’t move. I didn’t rest.

So I was wide awake when the trapdoor creaked open behind me.

Isaac, painful and fitful in sleep, startled awake. We both sat up to find Prince Bartholomew gazing at us.

A pillow smashed over my face as Isaac shoved me down into the mattress, hiding my identity unto the last.

“Is this the same slave as before, or are you working through the entire staff?” Bart asked. A hand closed around my injured bicep. I gritted my teeth against the pain as he ripped me from the bed. I rolled across the rug, landing in a heap before the hearth. But I didn’t spring up in defense of myself or Isaac—not yet. The crown prince’s question resonated in my skull. He didn’t recognize me as his fake cousin or Sir Etta’s squire!

“What can I say?” said Isaac, lifting his arrogant chin even now. “The king hasn’t really been up to performing lately.”

Prince Bartholomew stood facing the bed, his back to me. I might as well have ceased to exist. I was a slave, no more worthy of his attention than the ornaments on the wall. His hand shot out and caught a fistful of Isaac’s curls. Isaac arched off the bed, teeth bared in pain as he tried to take some of the pressure off his scalp by following Bart’s fist.

“I’ve seen you,” Bart said. “I’ve watched you. You’ve been working your way through the entire staff, practically—the stable boy, the pantler’s assistant, that server at the banquet…”

There was something all slaves and royals had in common: nobody between our stations looked at us directly. Even a lowly peasant was not a slave, and did not have to sink to our level; whereas the highest noble was not quite a royal, and could not assume to raise himself to their station. People lowered their eyes from the king and crown prince, but not so low that they were stuck looking at people like me.

But this went beyond normal ignorance. The prince was so focused on Isaac and only Isaac he’d never even looked close enough to realize all those members of the palace staff...were just me in different outfits. His focus on Isaac spoke to a malicious obsession, possibly even deeper than the king’s own.

“My father, the king, will be dead before the harvest. And then you’ll belong to me. I hope you don’t expect to cuckold me the way you do him.” The prince rested a knee on the edge of the bed, leaning into Isaac, trapping him against the wall. I stared, mute, as the mattress shifted inch by inch, to reveal something like a carved wooden handle wedged between it and the bed frame. I recognized the paring knife from my first night in the palace. Isaac had taken it from me, and I had fallen asleep. He’d hidden it—badly—and, in his breezy way, forgotten about it.

“What do we say we practice for our wedding night?” The prince set his teeth against Isaac’s throat.

I don’t know what came over me, or why. He wasn't doing anything to Isaac that Isaac and I hadn’t done to each other dozens of times. But he was saying such horrible things, and he was making Isaac cry.

When I came to my senses, the prince was dead.

I stood over his body catching my breath, marveling at the fact that I’d somehow very reasonably moved him from the piles of absorbent cushions to the tub, where most of his blood and the evidence of my crime drained slowly away.

I grunted with satisfaction and turned around to find Isaac on his feet, waving his arms, and saying a lot of panicked nonsense words.

“You killed the prince! You killed the fucking prince! We have to leave! We can’t stay—we have to tell the others somehow—we have to hide the body—”

This last statement I agreed with. I stripped the prince of his clothing—an awkward job, undressing a corpse—and stuffed his body into the service lift box where Isaac couldn’t see it.

I felt very calm. There was no horror or revulsion at what I’d done. It was as though a highly efficient, mechanical version of myself had killed the slave from the barn and taken over his body.

Isaac, unfortunately, was in hysterics. And I knew the blood all over me wasn’t helping. I could barely understand what he was saying.

“Let me get you a drink,” I suggested, and prepared a tumbler of wine for each of us.

He gulped his down and wanted more.

“Slow down,” I said, refilling his cup.

He’d drunk less than half of it before the drug kicked in.

I made sure to lay him down on his side, preserving his bandages.

When I was sure he’d be all right in my absence, I lowered the service lift with the prince’s body and climbed into the shaft, standing on top of the box.

The king was easy. His chambers were below Isaac’s, sharing a wall with the queen’s—a wall and a service lift for firewood.

The poison we'd been feeding him made the king tired during the day and a deep sleeper. Everyone knew he didn’t have long. I simply confirmed their suspicions by pressing an ornate pillow over his face and holding it there still he stopped twitching. My last keeper had begged me to do the same. I had been terrified then. I felt nothing now.

Then it was back up the shaft to the tower room.

Isaac lay exactly where and how I’d left him, tucked into bed facing the wall, covers up to his ears and his back to the bloodstain on his rug. I didn’t have the means to deal with the hidden body right now, other than to jam the fire poker into the crank, so that the box couldn’t be lifted or lowered. The scullery girl didn’t deserve to discover a corpse first thing in the morning.

My pure-white server’s tunic was ruined. I cast it and my black pants aside, then got dressed in the prince's trousers and one of Isaac’s fine, white undershirts. Some blood soaked into the pants from where I’d stabbed the prince in the groin, but the fancy tunic covered most of it, and anyway, blood on the executioner-prince wasn’t unheard of.

I strapped on his belt, tugged on his boots, kissed Isaac on the head, and went out through the trapdoor that led to the queen’s chambers. I was sure some guards had seen the prince heading toward Isaac’s tower. It wouldn’t do for them to miss him coming back.

I walked briskly, shoulders back, chin up, never looking at anyone directly, as if they weren’t worth my notice. I made it all the way back to the prince’s chambers with no fewer than a half-dozen witnesses and not a single suspicious glance.

I sat at the prince’s vanity and did my hair, trimming it as needed, combing and washing it, then darkening it. Shoe polish would have to do for now; the seamstress could find me better dye later. I didn’t need to hide the wound where my slave tattoo had been—half the nobles in the kingdom and all the king’s men witnessed the prince receiving an injury exactly like mine, thanks to Sir Etta.

I got into bed and waited. I knew Isaac would be regaining control of himself soon, but it killed me that I couldn’t be there to watch over him while he was vulnerable.

Dawn painted the windows in beautiful shades of pink and lilac, and I marveled at the sunrise. I’d missed it terribly, and felt then as if an old friend had come to greet me.

Soon after that the knock came at my door.

“Enter,” I called out in the prince’s scornful, hungover, early-morning voice.

Two guards came in slinking in with their tails between their legs, never daring to look directly at my face.

“Your highness.” They bowed.

“What is it?” I snapped.

“Your father, the king, is dead,” said one.

“You’re certain?” This was the sort of stupid question the prince would ask.

“Yes, your highness.”

“Leave me. Tell the physician I’ll be along shortly.”

“Yes, your highness.” They bowed again and turned to leave—but one of them paused. While his companion drew ahead, the older guard looked back over his shoulder. I’d seen him before. He had never given me or any slave any trouble, but now I wondered how many guards I would have to kill for the simple crime of recognizing my face.

I held his gaze.

“Long live the king,” he said, and left.

* * *

I got a lot done my first morning as king.

After donning the crown and the king’s robes, I fired all my father’s advisors and half of his guards, sent a dispatch to Marconin seeking advice from their rulers, had all the slaves currently in the barn brought to the palace to be fed and cared for temporarily, and all slaves sales suspended until further notice (a notice which would never come, but I was hoping to wait till after lunch to piss off the nobles further).

I summoned one prostitute in particular, and met with him in the relative privacy of my empty throne room.

He smiled at me beneath his crooked nose, drawling, “You look good in a crown.”

I didn’t have a lot of time to waste, and I didn’t want to play games. “Do you like working in a brothel?”

“Do I like it more than screaming from the temple steps, you mean?”

That was exactly what I meant.

He shrugged.

“I am in need of an advisor. Something went wrong with the last batch and I had to throw it out.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“My reign will be a short one,” I explained. “Due to a lack of natural resources, I fear our country will not continue to thrive in its independence, and I have a very little time in which to reunite very many families.”

Eyes wide, he bent at the waist with some level of sincerity. “I would be honored to assist you as your regent, no matter how briefly, your majesty.”

I sent him away with a new job.

Before the door could swing shut behind him, a young woman in a white server’s tunic scuttled into the throne room and bowed deeply without ever looking at me.

“Lunch is ready for you in the dining hall, Your Majesty.”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” I said, distracted with the quandary of reuniting thousands of slave children with their parents. Were family names even listed in the barn registers?

She started to leave.

“Wait,” I called, and then cursed myself when she whipped around in a panic.

She flung herself into another deep bow. “Y—yes, Your Majesty?”

“Send someone to fetch Isaac.”

“He will join you in the dining room at the sound of the bell. Your Majesty.”

“I don’t want him in the dining room, I want him here.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Her face paled. She fled.

I didn’t have to wait long.

He arrived shaking and terrified, keeping his head down.

Before I saw him, I had half a mind to play the role of king for as long as it took him to look me in the eye and realize it was me. But to see him like this—so low, so faithless, and still a little wobbly from the drug I’d slipped him—broke me.

“Isaac,” I said softly.

He lifted his chin. Joy spilled like light across his face.

“You did it,” he said, grinning like a child.

“Yeah.” I grinned back at him.

“It worked! You look just like him! And in his dad’s clothes—fuck, I thought you were the king! I feel like it should bother me, but it really, really doesn’t!” he rushed up the dais to join me on the throne, his legs wrapping clumsily around my waist. We nearly tumbled off the dais, laughing.

I leaned back, my hands on his hips, ever wary of his bandages. “Now what are you going to do?”

“I’m the prince consort.” He draped his arms around my neck. “I’m going to fuck the king.”

**Author's Note:**

> THE CONSORT AND I was originally a manuscript I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2020. I wrote the first draft between November 18 and December 20, give or take a day (I was done before Christmas Eve; I remember that was my goal). Then I edited it in February 2021, and posted it here in March 2021. (It's also on my Wattpad account, @SecretarysCar, but if you see it anywhere else, it's probably been posted without my permission.)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. :) I am a naturally reserved, borderline asocial person, but writing is how I connect with others.


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